#tires

Why would anyone want to change their own tires? Isn’t it hard work that usually involves at least one bleeding knuckle? Don’t the tools cost a small fortune when you consider that shops only charge about 25 bucks for the service? Well, some riders don’t live within a few miles of a bike shop. And some folks, well, they’ve always got to do things themselves.

“Tire testing” is rapidly becoming my favorite thing to do here at MO. It always involves going on a great ride, sometimes even a race track, and no one can really accuse me of getting it wrong, can they? Especially when the main claim is greater tire longevity. I’d like to hang around Austin and eat more barbecue and put 6,000 miles on these new Dunlops, but oh dear, look at the time…

What if a tire manufacturer told you that their new street tire had the performance chops to take 3.5 seconds off the best lap of the previous-generation tire at Spain’s Circuito de Cartagena? That’d get your attention, right? It got mine, but then again, I was sitting in a press briefing in one of the pit boxes at the Losail International Circuit so soon after the first MotoGP of the 2017 season that the rider name boards were still in place.

This past weekend at the MotoGP race at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, I had the opportunity to tour the Michelin paddock area to learn some fascinating information about what happens to the Michelin MotoGP Tires on every race weekend.

Bridgestone knows a thing or two about motorcycle tires. After all, the company supplied control tires to MotoGP for seven seasons. Another thing most riders should know but may not is that Bridgestone manufactures tires across every niche in the motorcycle industry, from state-of-the-art race tires to scooter rubber. However, the product development folks realized that, while metric cruisers were covered with the Exedra Max line, the Japanese tire manufacturer had not developed tires specifically for the American-made V-Twin cruiser market. So, Bridgestone’s engineers set out to remedy this situation, and the result is: “The Battlecruise H50 tire, the first of its kind from Bridgestone, expands the company’s motorcycle tire portfolio with a performance tire offering that is specially designed for large-displacement, cruiser-style bikes, which account for 50% of motorcycles on U.S. roadways.”

Companies that go racing love to promote how the lessons learned at the racetrack trickle down to the products we use on the street. Besides being great marketing fodder, the idea behind racing is to develop products that will benefit the everyday consumer. We generally think of sportbikes (and liter-class sportbikes in particular) as being direct translations of racetrack development trickling down to production models, but we sometimes forget about the only part of the motorcycle in continuous contact with the road: its tires.

So, Father’s Day is here, again, and when I complained to my wife about how I’d made a list of my ideas for motorcycle-related gifts only to discover that it almost exactly mimicked last year’s list, she said, “Remember, you’re providing a service. As a non-rider, I have no idea what to give you for Father’s Day.” My response to her was a simple, “You’re willing to spend more than $100 on me for Father’s Day!” Clearly, this buyer’s guide just became much more important.

Since 1979 Metzeler has produced only motorcycle tires. This singular focus has yielded significant firsts. In 1978, the company created the first tubeless motorcycle tire. The first tire with transversal grooves rolled out of the Metzeler factory in 1982, and the first mass-production tire with a Kevlar belt came out a year later. The first rear tire with a 0° steel belt came in 1992, and four years later, the first set or radial tires with 0° steel belts was released in the form of the Metzeler ME Z4. The march continued in 2008 with the patent of Interact technology for the Roadtec Z6 Interact. Now, Metzeler has released the heir to the popular Roadtec Z8 Interact throne, the Metzeler Roadtec 01.

While Dunlop was in town to show off its new Elite 4, it went ahead and dropped its new Adventure bike tire on us too: The new Trailsmart replaces the long-running Trailmax TR91.

What it is, really, is a street-going knobby for big, heavy adventure bikes, which are all the rage lately in case you hadn’t noticed. The leader of that dusty, BMW R1200GS-riding pack has for years been the Continental TKC80, which Michelin had squarely in its sights with the new Anakee Wild, as well as your Metzeler Karoo 3 and Heidenau K60 Scout. The Anakee Wild (not to be confused with the Anakee 3) cleans all their clocks, according to Michelin (as well as being good at cleaning itself in mud).

Don’t know about you, but when I think about the latest, greatest hot sticky tires for sportbikes, I don’t think “Continental” first, and the new Conti Sport Attack 3 isn’t really designed to change that. Probably that’s because Continental isn’t really associated with racing like Bridgestone, Pirelli, Dunlop, not in the U.S. at least. The new Sport Attack 3 is a sportbike tire designed for street use, for long life, for good but not ultimate grip, and in the case of this tire, increased wet traction.

If there was one piece of advice that you’d think was universal to all motorcyclists, whether they’re riding dirtbikes, sportbikes, cruisers, tourers or ice racing in Wisconsin in January (as the MO crew once did), it’s this: don’t put a car tire on a motorcycle. This advice is so natural-seeming, so obvious, that I don’t think I’ve ever had to actually type that phrase before, so I’m going to do it again, because it’s so much fun:

We all know we should perform a pre-ride check, but let’s be honest, we tend to skip them from time to time (or more frequently), don’t we? We’re only human, and that silly little check before we hit the road isn’t that important, is it? It’s not like we’re flying an airliner thousands of feet above the ground with hundreds of people on board. While we may think that only our lives are at stake when we ride, what happens to us can affect others both directly and indirectly.

Sport-tourers include a variety of designs from large technology-laden models such as BMW’s K1600GT, to Kawasaki’s more traditional Ninja 1000 to Ducati’s long-travel Multistrada and Yamaha’s FJ-09. With some luggage and a willing disposition you can, of course, set out for a far away destination aboard your new Yamaha R1 and call it sport-touring. And if you do, the tires in this Buyer’s Guide will certainly be a better choice than the sticky hoops you’d normally install on a sportbike.