PR3s are great. It won't be problem. I got 7000miles out of a rear on my TL1000 with first 4 months use in winter. Cold/wet grip is amazing so off the motorway it's easy to keep their profile.
Buy one of these bikes instead, you'd never square a tyre off. I don't know how they kept a straight face btw. "We do recognise that some motorcyclist go above the 70mph limit".............No s**t, Sherlock.
That vid was hugely funny,i'm 62 and glad we left behind tyres that were so hard even mach 4's did'nt smoke them out.Thank god for modern multi compound tyres,i'd be more worried about which piece of classical music i was humming.
My Ktm 1190 r that I've just traded in would do exactly this. On the conti sport attack tyres it was good for 120-130mph before it started but on the tck80 adventure tyres it was down to around 100-110mph and a fair bit less with any of the boxes on the back and got scary.
Brilliant video! Thanks. Obviously very funny (I wonder if I am part of the "tiny minority"?). But the points raised are interesting. Was the problem: Rubbish geometry Naff tyres Flexi-frames Crap front forks Wrong weight distribution Bollox rear shox Poor air flow? And why did more pies solve the problem? Thank God things are rather better these days.
Do you need to take the fastest route? Probably don't need anybody to point out the old A6, forest of Bowland, Preston, A59 to Liverpool, through the tunnel onto the Wirrel......
I started biking in 1976 and my first bike, a KH250, was maxed out at 85 but didn't weave unless I was on a sweeper and even then the weave was gentle and drama free. My '78 GS750 was completely weave free up to flat out (125'ish) Hmm! Should I have been on a calorie controlled diet then, do you think? Actually, I was very weedy then. My friends rode a variety of bikes, all capable of well over 85 (most memorable were a Z1 and a GT750) and nobody was particularly concerned about the speed limit, other than trying to stay over it, and I don't recall anyone experiencing anything like the film showed. We did get rid of the Yokohama Speedsters, or whatever the stock Japanese tyre was, and get European tyres. Avon Road Runners were most popular but I liked Michelins M38s on the KH. I can't remember what I used on the GS. But changing tyres was nothing to do with weave, it was because Japanese tyres were lethal in the wet. The only reason you weren't actually guaranteed to skid in the wet with Japanese tyres is because Japanese brakes were even worse in the wet. I think the film is very exaggerated except with reference to heavily loaded top boxes or idiotic tyre choices.
I didn't like the roadrunners either. They were a weird profile that made the bike reluctant to drop onto a corner and then it felt unstable when you were over.
So did my SMT. When I had Metzeler Z8's on it. It was shocking. 80 mph was frightening. I wrestled with the suspension and couldn't sort it. I nearly got rid of the bike. Then someone said put Roadsmart IIs on it. Instant calm. Miraculous. Now I can't even force a wobble and the front tyre is in the latter half of its life with visibly stepped wear. its completely stable well past 120 mph which on a tall, lightish upright bike with long travel suspension and no steering damper isn't bad at the best of times. Its amazing the difference the right (or wrong) tyres makes.
Yeah I was amazed the difference, glad you sorted it. I can see the compromise they have made; the 1190 AdvR rides really well standing up as you would a dirt bike and it's sensitive to steering with your feet through the pedals but I guess this makes it less stable at speed. The knobblies were a disaster though, obviously made sense if you were actually offroad lots but no good on the roads.
Haven't ridden the AdvR only the standard version. I thought that was really stable. I had it pushing 140 on a test ride and caught a blast of wind going past a gateway but it didn't waver. All down to wheel size and tyre type I guess. I imagine the OE tyres on the road-going 1190 are Dunlops. They seem to be KTM's standard choice. I'm going to try the SMT on M7rrs next time as I reckon they run at cooler temperatures than the Dunlops which seem to take a fair bit of heating up. I've had them spin up and step out on dry cold roads after a good hour of riding when in the same conditions the M7s on the Ducati wouldn't have. Much sportier profile though. It'll be interesting to see how that effects stability. Steering will be quick though. Its pretty sprightly now.
I suspect, but don't know, that more pies solved the problem because the associated shift in the CofG would change the natural frequency of the bike away from whatever is feeding the wobble and out of the resonant zone, similarly "lying down" on the bike.
I actually crashed my Pantah once due to horrible tyres. I think the standard rear size was a 110, but in the early days of radials, you could put on a Pirelli 130, still with a tube in it, so I did. It was superb, so I only used them as they lasted longer than Phantoms and were at least as grippy. Then when I had to do my first MOT in Switzerland, I was advised that an oversized tyre would be a fail, so the garage put some Pirelli Supertourings or something on it in the standard size. It was a long time ago. Can't remember the precise tyre. They induced a hideous wobble, rather like the video but almost worse. If you accelerated, it got worse. If you slowed, it got worse. The bike was unrideable over a certain speed (not even law-breaking). It went into a major wobble at the bottom of a mountain pass. I had to use all the road to brake and ended up clipping a boulder. I wasn't happy. When it was fixed, I put the radials back on and the problem entirely disappeared.
If someone is squaring their tyres, they need to learn how to lean a bike over..........Try Pirelli Gordons and then you will find a worse problem...........they went triangular.......
Or fit a tyre profile that's suits your type of riding and your riding style/ability. Choosing a sharper profile sporty tyre in the belief it will give better grip is counter productive if you're not making use of the full profile. You're better off with a more rounded sports-touring tyre that will get ridden edge to edge and maintain its profile as it wears.
