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A big post on tires

Ill BUMP this thread ... helped me pick out some new tires and actually know what I wanted.

I'm glad to hear that the thread helped! :)

Thanks Conan. great thread!
I'm having trouble deciding which tires to go with next, for street/track. I'm looking at the Corsa III's, 003RS, Power Pures. I have Michelin reg. PP's now and there done after 4K. I like how the sides have giant contact patch but wanna try another brand. I'm so confused hahaha. Please don't say bto16 i had those on last bike and disliked profile. I'm sure what ever I decide to get i will LOVE them. They're all pretty good now days.

What's your pace like? A/B/C? What's your street riding like?

Honestly, I'd probably go with the Power Pures just because I'm a sucker for new tire technology. If you like the powers, why not give Michelin a shot with their newest tires?
 
I've been to track at c pace last year as a really new rider so i'ma do c again til I really know the track(t-hill). There's no rush to crash right. Street is slow spirited mainly SC mnts/back-roads.

I'm leaning towards Michelins new technology i hear it's a huge step up from the 2ct over in the gsxr forums. so we'll see.

Yeah, I'd go with the new Power Pures then. Once you get bumped out of C and into B, I'd start looking at maybe getting a second set of rims to mount DOT race tires on or something.
 
Yeah, I'd go with the new Power Pures then. Once you get bumped out of C and into B, I'd start looking at maybe getting a second set of rims to mount DOT race tires on or something.

I think the leading hypersport tires nowadays should be good 'til you go sub-2min at Thill, so way past B pace.

I'd try the new Q2s from Dunlop if you want to switch and if you liked the PP profile and disliked the BT016 profile.
 
I think the leading hypersport tires nowadays should be good 'til you go sub-2min at Thill, so way past B pace.

I'd try the new Q2s from Dunlop if you want to switch and if you liked the PP profile and disliked the BT016 profile.

This is just me being cautious, but I had a set of Dunlop Qualifiers go off at around the 2:08 pace at Buttonwillow, which is significantly slower than a 2:00- at Thunderhill. I almost ended up on my head as the tires started to roast. Only the second trackday on those tires, too, and on an SV650, which isn't known for being particularly hard on tires.

Some riders can get around a track very quickly on street tires, but as someone is learning, I personally feel it's best to keep the tires a good bit ahead of your skillset. I would probably be able to get a set of qualifiers around Bwillow faster now, but that's because I have a lot more experience these days and I wouldn't be pushing my personal limits to make that time. Plus, dedicated track tires tend to slide more progressively than street ones, and I find that I have a lot more confidence with track tires over street tires.
 
Hey Mosquito, I noticed the question you had about where the measurements are applied.

The 120mm in the example is a measure of tread width, not a 'cross section' width. And yes, the 'ratio' number is the height of the sidewall. It's the percentage of treadwidth that the sidewall height equals.
But these numbers are not "absolutes". The actual measurements may vary a bit depending on manufacturers preferences. (Some automotive D.O.T. race rubber manu.'s are notorious for fudging the numbers, for an apparent grip advantage of a given size)

And the 'R' after the 'Z' is in reference to it being a 'Radial' as opposed to being a 'bias-ply'.

Good info Conan.
Tires are one of the most critical parts of our vehicles, and is always good to see good info presented. :thumbup
 
Yeah, I'd go with the new Power Pures then. Once you get bumped out of C and into B, I'd start looking at maybe getting a second set of rims to mount DOT race tires on or something.
I damn near highsided in C group on 2CTs... and had no issue with them in B group. Of course, I'd only had the bike running a month when I did my first trackday... and the next two were within a week. First trackday: started in C, damn near highsided, bumped to B (SoW). 2nd: C, ended the day one of the fastest riders in my session (BW). 3rd: B, ended the day passing more than I was passed (BW CCW).
 
This is just me being cautious, but I had a set of Dunlop Qualifiers go off at around the 2:08 pace at Buttonwillow, which is significantly slower than a 2:00- at Thunderhill. I almost ended up on my head as the tires started to roast. Only the second trackday on those tires, too, and on an SV650, which isn't known for being particularly hard on tires.

Some riders can get around a track very quickly on street tires, but as someone is learning, I personally feel it's best to keep the tires a good bit ahead of your skillset. I would probably be able to get a set of qualifiers around Bwillow faster now, but that's because I have a lot more experience these days and I wouldn't be pushing my personal limits to make that time. Plus, dedicated track tires tend to slide more progressively than street ones, and I find that I have a lot more confidence with track tires over street tires.

Qualifiers sucked, even as a street tire. I wouldn't run them to the grocery store, gym, or breakin' in a new motor. Q2s are the new ones, they're treaded like the D211 dot race tire and run damn near like the 211s. The difference between Qualifiers and Q2s is bigger than 209 gpa vs. 211 ntec! For those who run Dunlop race rubber, you know how EPIC that is!

Talented individuals can definitely hit a fast pace with hypersport tires though. I know Ken Hill was doing '56s at Thill on a freakin' 4 year old Corsa III in suboptimal surface conditions :wow

STAR school ran Gixxers on Qualifiers (yeah the shitty older ones) and Pridmore and Cudlin hit 2min pace on 'em on a 60 degree day :party

The other thing is, manufacturers make a whole different product (sometimes) for the 160 series vs the 180/190 superbike sizes. I know that's the case with Michelin for sure, so it makes it hard to compare between SVs and 600/1000 machines.

If I ran an SV racebike, I'd run either Michelins or Pirellis, for superbike sizes, Dunlop or Pirelli :ride
 
I damn near highsided in C group on 2CTs... and had no issue with them in B group. Of course, I'd only had the bike running a month when I did my first trackday... and the next two were within a week. First trackday: started in C, damn near highsided, bumped to B (SoW). 2nd: C, ended the day one of the fastest riders in my session (BW). 3rd: B, ended the day passing more than I was passed (BW CCW).

This sort of inconsistency, while it may not be the fault of the tires, just doesn't lend confidence. I've heard many, many stories about street tires just suddenly going off, and that's a much more rare occurrence with track tires. Plus if you've ever run DOTs on the track, you'll know how much more grip and feel they give you.

Also, while I use A/B/C as a general rule of thumb, there are fast tracks and slow tracks and fast groups and slow groups. I've done days on my SV where I was at the top of the A group, and I've done days where I've spent all day in A being passed and never passing anyone. Which is why I recommend moving up tire compounds earlier, rather than later...it makes sure that you have the best suited tool for the job.

:laughing i was emailing viets and he also mentioned ken Hill ripping the track on corsa III's. i guess its more the rider than the tire. there's no magic tire imo just like a pc5 wont make you the fastest on the track.

I hate this comparison more than anything else. I know that Colin edwards got within 8 seconds of his best on his motoGP bike on the old Pilot Powers. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea for a new rider, who's still expanding their personal limits. You're talking about people with decades or more of experience riding and racing, who are able to extract that level of performance out of a tire. Someone who's been riding for a couple of years, may have upwards of a hundred thousand miles under their belt, and you're comparing their performance to that of a seasoned racer? It's absurd.

Riders like Ken Hill, Berto, the guys who are rocking the front row of the AFM grids can do amazing things on subpar hardware. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea for one of us to be doing that. You have to realize that Ken Hill, at 1:56s, is pulling times that for him are an eternity off of his personal bests there. Is it fast by our standards? Absofuckinglutely. But he's extracting every bit of traction out of that tire and more, probably sliding it around a fair bit, and playing with the limits of traction in a way that's hard enough to explain, let alone replicate. He's pulling laps that probably feel a lot like warm up laps to him. He's got the lines, he's got the throttle control, the brake control, the lean control, and a thousand and one other factors that go into a fast lap besides the tires that a new rider simply doesn't have.


Again, just my 2c. If you're going to go to the track, it would make sense that you bring the appropriate tools. Just because Ken Hill can drive a railroad tie with a framing hammer doesn't mean we should ignore that we also have sledgehammers available. :laughing


Roytmani, I've run on a wide variety of bikes at the track, and I still really don't think it's a good idea to run street tires when you start to up the pace, regardless of size and construction. You don't compare the performance of a world class rider to that of a trackday noob in any other realm, why do people think it's a good idea to do that with tires? It's like saying "Just brake less and gas more and that's how you get a fast lap". Sure, it's the truth and it's how you do it, but it's not helpful, and it's likely to end up with someone on their head as they accidentally, rather than intentionally, exceed the limits of the tires and their skillset. I've drifted around the track on a roasted SC2 before, and I learned a lot, because it let me lose traction way before my personal limit. I'd guess it feels much the same for the fast guys to roast a street tire on the track...they're finding that limit of traction way before their personal limits would be kicking in, so they're able to focus and extract the maximum performance out of the tire while maintaining excellent consistency and technique as they ride.
 
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I hate this comparison more than anything else. I know that Colin edwards got within 8 seconds of his best on his motoGP bike on the old Pilot Powers. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea for a new rider, who's still expanding their personal limits. You're talking about people with decades or more of experience riding and racing, who are able to extract that level of performance out of a tire. Someone who's been riding for a couple of years, may have upwards of a hundred thousand miles under their belt, and you're comparing their performance to that of a seasoned racer? It's absurd.

Riders like Ken Hill, Berto, the guys who are rocking the front row of the AFM grids can do amazing things on subpar hardware. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea for one of us to be doing that. You have to realize that Ken Hill, at 1:56s, is pulling times that for him are an eternity off of his personal bests there. Is it fast by our standards? Absofuckinglutely. But he's extracting every bit of traction out of that tire and more, probably sliding it around a fair bit, and playing with the limits of traction in a way that's hard enough to explain, let alone replicate. He's pulling laps that probably feel a lot like warm up laps to him. He's got the lines, he's got the throttle control, the brake control, the lean control, and a thousand and one other factors that go into a fast lap besides the tires that a new rider simply doesn't have.


Again, just my 2c. If you're going to go to the track, it would make sense that you bring the appropriate tools. Just because Ken Hill can drive a railroad tie with a framing hammer doesn't mean we should ignore that we also have sledgehammers available. :laughing


Roytmani, I've run on a wide variety of bikes at the track, and I still really don't think it's a good idea to run street tires when you start to up the pace, regardless of size and construction. You don't compare the performance of a world class rider to that of a trackday noob in any other realm, why do people think it's a good idea to do that with tires? It's like saying "Just brake less and gas more and that's how you get a fast lap". Sure, it's the truth and it's how you do it, but it's not helpful, and it's likely to end up with someone on their head as they accidentally, rather than intentionally, exceed the limits of the tires and their skillset. I've drifted around the track on a roasted SC2 before, and I learned a lot, because it let me lose traction way before my personal limit. I'd guess it feels much the same for the fast guys to roast a street tire on the track...they're finding that limit of traction way before their personal limits would be kicking in, so they're able to focus and extract the maximum performance out of the tire while maintaining excellent consistency and technique as they ride.

Conan, I couldn't agree with you more! I was saying that for a street application, with some limited C group track time sprinkled in, top of the line hypersports (whether Q2 or Pures) would be more than sufficient.

I'd still highly recommend getting dot race tires or even slicks for the track, but if that's not possible or feasible...well, the best hypersport should do well by him for a while.

I know I had a bike that did double duty and ran PP and PP2CTs on it (because I did like 10-12k twisties and only 10 trackdays per year on it). That started sliding around quite a bit right around the 2 minute mark. Once I got a dedicated track bike, it was all slicks and dot race tires from there. Truly a world of difference! I'd rather slide around on a "goin out the door" dunlop slick or 211 anyday (did this most of the time this year, as I exclusively ran take-offs :laughing) rather than a PP or Corsa III riding past the tires' limits.

In that sense, from a learning standpoint, I coudn't agree with you more. Get the best track tires possible, you'll learn quicker and in a safer manner.
 
Conan, I couldn't agree with you more! I was saying that for a street application, with some limited C group track time sprinkled in, top of the line hypersports (whether Q2 or Pures) would be more than sufficient.

I'd still highly recommend getting dot race tires or even slicks for the track, but if that's not possible or feasible...well, the best hypersport should do him well for a while.

I know I had a bike that did double duty and ran PP and PP2CTs on it (because I did like 10-12k twisties and only 10 trackdays per year on it). That started sliding around quite a bit right around the 2 minute mark. Once I got a dedicated track bike, it was all slicks and dot race tires from there. Truly a world of difference! I'd rather slide around on a "goin out the door" dunlop slick or 211 anyday (did this most of the time this year, as I exclusively ran take-offs :laughing) rather than a PP or Corsa III riding past the tires' limits.

In that sense, from a learning standpoint, I coudn't agree with you more. Get the best track tires possible, you'll learn quicker and in a safer manner.

Yeah, sorry, that one sort of brought out the pet peeve in me. :laughing


As always, readers should remember that I'm not the fastest or bestest rider out there. No where close. But I learned a lot from other people sharing their experiences, and then trying out things myself and making my own decisions from there. This is one of the few things that I feel really strongly about, because I almost ended up on my head, and have had too many people almost or actually end up crashing as they exceeded the limit on a tire that wasn't as forgiving as they had expected.

I have experienced the difference in construction with the new P1s on my SV, and honestly, I'm going to a 600 after that debacle. :laughing
 
Yeah, sorry, that one sort of brought out the pet peeve in me. :laughing


As always, readers should remember that I'm not the fastest or bestest rider out there. No where close. But I learned a lot from other people sharing their experiences, and then trying out things myself and making my own decisions from there. This is one of the few things that I feel really strongly about, because I almost ended up on my head, and have had too many people almost or actually end up crashing as they exceeded the limit on a tire that wasn't as forgiving as they had expected.

I have experienced the difference in construction with the new P1s on my SV, and honestly, I'm going to a 600 after that debacle. :laughing

Yeah, the Power Ones are different in the 160 size construction vs 180/190.

When I tested out my friends SV racebike last year (was thinking of getting into 650prod) the Power Ones stuck well until the rear let go, then it was quick and not very predictable, you had to catch it quickly and smootly, or else. The front was great all around.

If you stick with the SV, give the Pirellis a try, they should be more predictable and easier to control when sliding.
 
Yeah, the Power Ones are different in the 160 size construction vs 180/190.

When I tested out my friends SV racebike last year (was thinking of getting into 650prod) the Power Ones stuck well until the rear let go, then it was quick and not very predictable, you had to catch it quickly and smootly, or else. The front was great all around.

If you stick with the SV, give the Pirellis a try, they should be more predictable and easier to control when sliding.

Yeah, I really liked the Pirellis on my SV. It's a toss up between that and the Dunlops on the next track/racebike...I loved the slide behavior of the pirellis, but not the speed of wear and "lack" of front end feedback, and on the dunlops I loved the front end feedback, and relatively low wear, but not the price and the feel of the rear tire. :laughing

Compromise, as always.
 
I hear the BT003RS in 160 is also not the same as the bigger ones... even heard that it's basically a BT016 with a different tread pattern.
 
Yeah, I really liked the Pirellis on my SV. It's a toss up between that and the Dunlops on the next track/racebike...I loved the slide behavior of the pirellis, but not the speed of wear and "lack" of front end feedback, and on the dunlops I loved the front end feedback, and relatively low wear, but not the price and the feel of the rear tire. :laughing

Compromise, as always.

I loved the feedback from both ends of the Dunlop ntec slicks and 211s, the rear slid very consistently, in 195/65 slick or 200/55 211 sizes. The 209 gpa's sucked though both in feedback and consistency, ran a 190/55 rear on a 600 with that setup. The front was good, but not like an ntec slick good.

I'm going to try some Pirelli SCs next, heard the feedback is almost as good as Dunlops, the wear's a litte quicker, but the pricing and rider support from TrackMonkey is :party
 
I hear the BT003RS in 160 is also not the same as the bigger ones... even heard that it's basically a BT016 with a different tread pattern.

That wouldn't surprise me at all. Michelin basically took the Power Race and re-treaded it to look like the Power One for the superbike sizes (after they had major issues with the tread peeling off of the carcass of the all new Power One). They didn't have any issues with the 160s though, so they sport a new carcass and the new tread.
 
I'm going to try some Pirelli SCs next, heard the feedback is almost as good as Dunlops, the wear's a litte quicker, but the pricing and rider support from TrackMonkey is :party

Honestly, I feel bad about leaving michelin because AFMotorsports (Alex) was fucking amazingly good to me. It's just frustrating that me and the tires never quite clicked. I know that I'll be in good hands with either Alex or TrackMonkey though, and at least I can still use alex to get vesrah pads and shit.

I have no idea what the biz is on this P1 carcass/tread/etc stuff is...I rely on the tire guys to let me know what is what.
 
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