Thank you for posting this
@TerryS and
@caldercay.
I was hoping that they might have done a 'proper' long term evaluation over the life of the tyre for the benefit of the riders who ride at either end if the sports touring range, as the opening paragraphs seemed to suggest. But for the tourers amongst us, there seems to be precious little to glean from this report from MCN.
It's nice that they have done the comparison on a very popular tourer, but then they seem to put no pillion on it, no touring load, and don't bother to say whether they have fitted touring spec tyres. They then do the test with the lightweight rider who is a racer. So they are not able to comment on how long tyres last, how well they work when fully loaded, how the wear and wear rate develops over the life of the tyre, or even how they handle in the wet (it was a dry day 12-14 deg).
But there is a good comparison of the feeling of sportiness that each of the tyres provides for 22 miles. So that is useful.
I hoped the reviews that are linked in the web based version would provide more information - but they seem to merely quote manufacturers' claims, or in one case went to Morocco and then brushed aside the fact that they were unable to test the tyres in the wet.
Still, this stuff is always worth a read. It is handy to be able to compare the experience that I have with many thousands if miles of riding a few different tyres with the results that they report. The things that match my knowledge for the tyre that I know will probably be a useful comparison point for the tyres that I don't know. In the same way, when reading reports when researching for my next new bike, I always read the report for bikes that I have owned from the same reviewer - so that I have a good point of reference.