New tires

[cjames431]

Well, I did need new tires and so I thought why not start another thread on which ones should I get?
Actually, it’s not that kind of thread. I put new Metzler Tourance tires on my son’s Vstrom 650 and took it for a quick ride. I have been riding for 16yrs and 159k plus miles and am always cautious when out on new rubbers. I have never had any problems though. No slips nor slides until today. I felt a little slip turning out of the driveway so I noted and was careful making the next turn. Not to much throttle but there went the tail and down we went. We being, me and the wee. A new front brake lever and a bar end weight screw are all that’s needed.

 

[Larry Fine]

Yep, gotta start out mostly straight, and add more lean angle a little at a time, so there's always some already-scuffed rubber on the road.

 

[TerryS]

I came very close to dropping my VF750F back in the day, fitted new Metzelers (I was a big fanboy of them on sporty bikes) pulled out into traffic from the workshop, realised I was going a bit slow to merge nicely and gave it some welly, and had a big slide from the rear, my 20-year old self caught it nicely with my foot and then pushed it back upright. I suffered from a decent leg strain afterwards. Nowadays...not a hope of a save like that. The last tyre that took a little time to bed in was a Bridgestone T30 on my VTR1000F but that was golden after about 5km of progressive leaning.

The last tyre that I really hated was a crossply Metzeler on the front of my ST1100; it was made in Brazil, and should have stayed there (no offence to Brazilians). It tramlined, felt constantly nervous and then kindly wore out really fast, so I could replace it with something decent (a Bridgestone T23).

 

[Daboo]

You're also in a time of the year around Tacoma where there's still a bunch of the really really fine sand they put down for the potential snow. I found some up north here on a bridge. I totally didn't expect it, but I could understand why. Clean dry roads...and then sand that was pushed out of the tire tracks but still there.

Chris