Modern Buddy

Do scooter tires need to be balanced like cage tires?

They need to be balanced, though maybe not the same way. I haven't done a tire change myself, but hear they're pretty easy to balance if you can handle the rest.

Otherwise, you don't really need to worry about it.

I would guess that they may need balancing. However my original tires showed no signs of balancing, and the new set of Michlin S-1 that I just put on are smooth as glass from Start to 60MPH. No sign of vibration. I just had a chance for rain driving for 2 days this week, And I am really Impressed with this tire.

Can I go with any wider tires? Or do I need to stick with the 90/90 size for my Intl?

I looked into larger size tires for my buddy 125. I got down and laid on the floor and looked at every place around the stock tires for clearance etc. The front would accomodate a larger size, however the rear has a place that the muffler bracket bolts to that only cleared the tire by 3/8". So I stayed with the stock size of 3.50 x 10. By doing a google search for scooter tire size specs, the outside diameter and width are listed so a decision can be made as to tire sizing, and converting metric to non metric etc. Pluses for larger size tires would be to make the speedometer more accurate and get a little higher MPG as the engine is reved to the max anyway.