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Best Tyres for Touring

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lynnnsr
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PostPosted: 21:25 - 17 Apr 2017    Post subject: Best Tyres for Touring Reply with quote

Narrowed it down to Bridgestone BT016 or BT021, but struggling to find info on the actual differences between these tyres.

Planning a 3,000 mile round trip to Southern Spain next month on a 2000 Honda Blackbird. There will doubtless be some twisty roads, but a lot of straight line too just to cover the distance.

No particular reason for the Bridgestone preference, other than most of the bikes I have had have had Bridgestones on and they seemed a lot better on grip than a set of Contis I had once. So open to other suggestions too.

I suppose I am more concerned with wear than outright grip, I am more into covering distance than going round the roundabouts with my knee on the floor.

Please talk tyres to me!

Cheers.
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Howling Terror
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PostPosted: 21:35 - 17 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gets covered here on a regular basis.

Consensus appears to be the current crop of sportstouring tyres from the big names are all quite good with the PR2/3/4 being some of the most liked on BCF.

Some tyre manufacturers offer their ST tyre range with different constructions so if your main riding is 2up with luggage check them out.
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chickenstrip
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PostPosted: 21:44 - 17 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do not go for BT021s. Commonly known to be an appalling tyre with very weird wear characteristics. This is not the first time recently these have been mentioned here on BCF as a possible choice, but surely they must have stopped making these ages ago, as they were first manufactured donkey's years ago?

+1 for PR series.

Recently read of someone who liked a PR3 on the front, PR4 on the rear of his Fazer 1000. Reckoned it turned in a bit quicker than having both PR4s, but with better wear rate than a 3 on the rear. Very subjective things are tyres though.

I'm going to be doing several thousand miles in Europe from end of May, and will start with a new set of PR4s. I expect to get somewhere in the region of 6000 miles from them on my own Fazer 1000.
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lynnnsr
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PostPosted: 22:18 - 17 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

PRs certainly get a good write up but are quite a bit beyond my budget.
Will avoid BT021s then anyway.

Is oponeo still the best for cheapness?
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Kris
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PostPosted: 11:13 - 18 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Both of the OP's suggestions are old-spec now.

Latest Bridgestone will be S21 for sporty riding with distance work, or 023's for more touring based riding..
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Matt B
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PostPosted: 11:17 - 18 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

lynnnsr wrote:
PRs certainly get a good write up but are quite a bit beyond my budget.
Will avoid BT021s then anyway.

Is oponeo still the best for cheapness?


The price difference between a set of BT021 and PR3 on Oponeo is £30. That's really not much money and would probably pay itself back over the life of the tyre seeing as PR3s don't square off and wear funny when touring, therefore last longer.

If you want proper budget touring tyres look at a pair of Diablo Strada which come in at not much over £100.
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B5234FT
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PostPosted: 11:34 - 18 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im having a similar dilemma for a GPZ500S commuter. I run pilot road 4s on my street triple, but fancied something a little more resistant to squaring off for commuting use.
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Enduro Numpty
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PostPosted: 12:01 - 18 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Matt B wrote:
lynnnsr wrote:
PRs certainly get a good write up but are quite a bit beyond my budget.
Will avoid BT021s then anyway.

Is oponeo still the best for cheapness?


The price difference between a set of BT021 and PR3 on Oponeo is £30. That's really not much money and would probably pay itself back over the life of the tyre seeing as PR3s don't square off and wear funny when touring, therefore last longer.

If you want proper budget touring tyres look at a pair of Diablo Strada which come in at not much over £100.


I haven't really found that much difference in all the tyres I've had on my FJR1300 in 50K miles but (and I know I'm weird) I found the PR3 rear squared off really quickly and steering was very heavy from the off on the FJR. Contimotions were very cheap and as grippy as some top end sports tyres but mileage was truly abysmal.
Currently running T30GT evo on the FJR. Great grip, shite mileage - same as BT023, Angel GT, Pilot Powers, Z8's etc..

Tyres are very subjective. Most FJR owners like PR3's, I think they're crap. There are very few really bad tyres out there apart from the BT021's which I've never tried but have yet to read a good report on.
"GT" is usually moulded on a touring version of a particular tyre and may or may not claim to offer better mileage or dual compound rubber. Sometimes you can see the different rubber but as far as I'm concerned it's just different coloured and makes no significant difference to wear rates. As you would imagine you will pay more for the "GT" tyre.
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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 12:26 - 18 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

B5234FT wrote:
Im having a similar dilemma for a GPZ500S commuter. I run pilot road 4s on my street triple, but fancied something a little more resistant to squaring off for commuting use.


I'd struggle to recommend anything but BT45s for a GPZ500. The handling can be pretty odd on anything else, you'd be taking a chance.

Dual compound, bias belted tyres so they should last pretty well.

Is anything more resistant to squaring off than PR4s? You'll struggle there. Avon safety mileage (they are already square)?
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lynnnsr
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PostPosted: 14:41 - 27 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stretched the budget a bit and went for PR2s in the end.
Less than a month to go now before I set off for Southern Spain. I will create a thread shortly before I go and the plan is to add to it daily as I progress.

I am actually taking with me a full size office keyboard which I can plug in to my phone just so that I can enter a fair amount of text each day - otherwise limited to a screen keyboard I more than likely wouldn't bother, and the detail of the trip would fade.
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c_dug
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PostPosted: 17:42 - 27 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Enduro Numpty wrote:

"GT" is usually moulded on a touring version of a particular tyre and may or may not claim to offer better mileage or dual compound rubber. Sometimes you can see the different rubber but as far as I'm concerned it's just different coloured and makes no significant difference to wear rates. As you would imagine you will pay more for the "GT" tyre.


I had a really interesting chat about GT tyres with my tyre shop for the Wales trip on my Divvy 900 a couple of years back. Anybody who has seem me ride to and from the BBQ will attest to how much weigh I pile on the bike.

With BT023s the GT version has exactly the same rubber as the standard 023 but a stiffer sidewall and general construction to cope with higher weights, a heavy bike on standard rubber can deform the tyre making cornering slow and potentially unpredictable, or require undesirably high pressures to handle properly (inflating beyond the recommended maximum).

In my case I was expecting to do a 1000 or so miles with very high weight on the bike, but otherwise I generally used the bike for commuting solo. They recommend I ran high pressures to cope with the extra weight, in their opinion it'd cope with up to 50psi safely enough so recommended I basically load the bike up and sit on it and inflate to the point that it no longer deformed the tyres horribly.

The trade off with GT tyres is less feel apparently, and for me with it being less than 10% of the tyres life being being spent with that much weight on board, they said it simply wasn't worth the difference.

For what its worth I'm a massive BT023 fan, I put a brand new pair on my current Fazer 600 this time last year and have done over 11,000 miles since then, the back has loads of life left, but the front is getting close to the mark now and needs changing soon. ~12,000 miles tyre life is more than good enough in my books!
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Scythe
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PostPosted: 20:41 - 27 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kris wrote:
Both of the OP's suggestions are old-spec now.

Latest Bridgestone will be S21 for sporty riding with distance work, or 023's for more touring based riding..


The 023's were replaced by the Bridgestone T30 (GT version also available). People have been raving about them, I enjoyed them when I rode on a set at Donington even though they're a sports touring tyre. Set a good time too.
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lynnnsr
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PostPosted: 21:23 - 27 Apr 2017    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scythe wrote:

The 023's were replaced by the Bridgestone T30 (GT version also available). People have been raving about them, I enjoyed them when I rode on a set at Donington even though they're a sports touring tyre. Set a good time too.


The bike actually came with T30 GTs on it, but unfortunately too old and worn to start off on a long tour with. I've certainly had no problem with them, and they aren't showing a lot of evidence of being squared off, though the tread is quite worn down in the middle, which seems odd.
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The last post was made 6 years, 337 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful?
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