Bought a new rear tyre on Friday. Got 12500kms out of the Pilot Power. I consider that pretty fair, given that it’s more of a sports tyre than a sports/touring one. I replaced like with like so we’ll see how this one goes. However, I didn’t put the wheel back in until Saturday morning and then chores prevented me from scrubbing it in during the day. So, it was off to Nowra to the speedway meeting late in the afternoon. Now, riding on a new tyre can be difficult, especially that first couple of hundred kilometres, but I figured that I’d have done that by the time the night was over and so I set off.
It never ceases to amaze me how much a new tyre revitalises the bike’s handling and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride down, though I was taking it a bit easy in deference to the new hoop. Speedway meeting over I headed home only to get to the north end of Nowra and it started raining.
Now, riding on a new tyre does require care, and riding at night on a new tyre requires even more, especially judging corners when there is a car coming the other way and you can’t use high beam.
BUT, riding at night, on a new tyre AND in the rain, is pretty close to the worst combination you can get. I tippy-toed all the way home, feeling the bike squirm on every corner and keeping my eyes out on stalks for puddles and other debris. Far from taking my usual classic lines, I concentrated in keeping the bike as far away from the painted lines as possible, and willing the kilometres to go. You see, as I had had to deliver some Christmas presents to a friend in Nowra before the meeting, I hadn’t packed my wets and so, by the time I arrived home, well after midnight, I was wet through, my eyes felt weary and the concentration levels had exhausted me.
Somewhat of a trial, and I slept the sleep of an honest labourer last night, I can assure you.
sanoptic says
Hi,
I find today’s tyres very good from new,recently fitted a pair of Michelin Road pilot2s and on dry roads you can go normal speeds from scratch without a problem.
Now i remember in 1975 i picked up a brand new kawasaki Z1 900 & rode it home in the rain on those diabolical rim protectors that were oem for this bike [Yokohamas from memory] . Also the front disc brake were also useless in the wet for that era of bikes .
cheers
Phil Hall says
Tyre and disk brake technology has certainly iroved since then. The old single pivoted-caliper disk on the early Honda 4’s were even worse than the Kawasaki ones, from memory.