New Tyres....

[Jake]

On Tuesday, I ordered a Michelin Pilot Road 2
rear tyre (150/70 ZR17) from Oponeo and it arrived
this morning (Thursday) from the Netherlands.
Great service it took only two days to arrive and
cost £95 including free delivery. I’ll use Oponeo
again when it’s time to replace the front tyre.

Only drawback is prices have risen slightly. The same
tyre now costs £103 including free delivery:

www.oponeo.co.uk/moto-tyre-finder/150-70z-r17-tyres

[Jake]

Recently, I had an interesting experiance with new the
Pilot Road 2 tyres fitted to the bike.

Originally, I had a Pilot 2 tyre fitted to the rear of the
bike, but still had the old BT020 (Bridgestone) fitted
on the front, and the bike was feeling twitchy at higher
speeds. So I had a new Pilot fitted to the front, thinking
that this would cure the problem. I also put some Ride-On
puncture sealant in both tyres and took the bike out on to
the road to see how it handled.

But the bike actually felt worse. It felt top heavy and
unstable at normal road speeds and I was left wondering
if the new tyres were creating this problem, or possibly
the sealant I’d put into them. So, I decided to raise the
preload on the rear suspension to try and transfer more
weight on to the front, and thereby reduce the front
end instability. But again, this made the problem worse
and I came to the conclusion that it was the sealant that
was creating the problem.

As a last desperate measure, I then reduced the rear
preload to one step lower than its original setting, and
took the bike out on to the road once more, and hey presto!
the problem disappeared. The bike felt planted and a lot
more secure, and the softer suspension setting made it
more comfortable to ride.

The conclusion I’ve reached therefore, is that the
Pilot Road 2 tyres are a bit more responsive in terms
of steering than the old BT020 tyres, and that the
rear suspension settings needed to be reduced slightly in
order to compensate for this.....but it took me a long
time to figure this out and I’m still not sure if this theory
is correct.

(Incidentally, in terms of tyre pressures, I’ve followed
Michelin’s recommendation of 36 psi front and 42 psi rear.)