i am a big fella (18stone) and taking my ST3 on its first big trip to normandy later this week ... what tyre pressures are recommended - i have noted that some have said disregard the factory spec as it kills them i was thinking 36-38 fronts 38-40 rears PSI your help is appreciated
Depend which tyre as well. I run 35 rear 33 front on my SF with Metzler M7RRs. On the Superduke I've got Dunlop Sportsmart IIIs and they feel washy at those pressures and didn't feel right again till I raised them to 38R/35F. I'll be changing the Dunlops soon to the M7RRs as well. It'll be interesting to see which pressures I end up with and whether it is tyre-sensitive or bike-sensitive. Either way, the only way to know is to try different pressures out and see which is right for you, altering a couple of PSI at a time.
My ST4s came with Bridgestone T30s with maybe 3k miles on them. The guy I bought from had fitted them when he got the bike and ran them on the pressures speced by Ducati ... about 30F and 34R if I remember right. The bike also had factory ride height and slightly odd spring and damper settings. So it handled pretty much like shit. Anyway, giving it lots more ride height,setting up the sag and returning the damper settings to book made quite a difference, along with upping tyres to 33/36, which is what I run on my SS with proper sports tyres. Still not brilliant though. So I looked on Bridgestone's site and lo and behold ..... 36/42, just like every other bike I've owned with sports touring tyres. Worked a treat .... turns into low speed corners without anywhere near as much steering movement, holds a line much better, no reduction in high speed stability and no reduction in perceived grip levels. Job done, hopefully.
