motorcyclebloggers.com

Dare I venture here…

RoadRacing World recently had a tire shootout amongst all the big brands for both race compound tires and street/track day compound tires. This shootout was done at the track. The results, for this article, are not important. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely great information about the finer performance characteristics of each tire. But one thing that a track shootout cannot address is the rider’s history.

While I read the article, the first thing I did was to scan through it to find my brand and how it performed as probably did everyone. But I am fortunate enough not to be mired in the tire selection process. I knew that no matter the results I probably wasn’t going to change…I’ll explain.

First things first, for the street race compound is probably a bad decision. They have great grip characteristics once they are at temperature, but usually take a LONG time to get there (relative to street compounds). Second, if you don’t get them to temperature on a colder ambient temp ride, they will probably cold tear which will leave deep scuffs in the rubber. Third, they will simply not last very long on the center where most of the riding is done outside of the twisties.

My philosophy when people ask about “the best tire” is to answer with the follow-up question “What have you used and what have you liked in the past?” Everyone has different riding styles as well as different expectations and preferences in tire performance.

read the rest of the article…