Touring Tires?

[TBFGhost]

What tires do you guys run when you go out for extented mile trips? I run Road Attacks and love them but I the longest I have ever gone in a day is 350 miles (Real backwards was to Hersery PA, from Clinton, NJ )....

I plan on doing more of these 350-450 mile one way trips next season and maybe a few "long haul" ones. Most likly around 1500-2000 mile round trips or so. Kinda wondering if a different tire would be better, don't know if a harder compound or different profile might help out?

[The CyberPoet]

Metzeler Z6's.

Suitable for sports-touring, get over 10k miles out of them, handle wet weather ideally, and can still drag a knee. Not to mention, it's the best tire for the 98+ Kat, IMHO.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[KustomKata]

Dude i am kinda ****ed at my road attacks because of how fast they wear down. I have put about a thousand miles on mine, with no burnouts, and they are diminishing.

[JaxKat]

Metzeler Z6's... Can't go wrong... Ask CP.

[md86]

Or Diablo Stradas , which are supposedly very similar .....

[DRUNK_UNCLE]

Dude i am kinda ****ed at my road attacks because of how fast they wear down. I have put about a thousand miles on mine, with no burnouts, and they are diminishing.

I have no idea what you are doing, but I run Road Attacks on my 2006 Triumph Sprint ST and got 6700 miles out of the rear tire before a nail claimed the life of the rear tire with quite a bit of tread left. The Triumph weighs more and has about 30hp more than my 2000 Kat. Hell I put over a thousand miles on the the track and you can notice only marginal tread wear.

[ZukiFred]

Z6's get my vote. The Diablo Strada's are similar, but seemed to wear a little faster than the Z6's did on my kat.

[the wind]

Or Diablo Stradas , which are supposedly very similar .....

and polit road are close too.

[The CyberPoet]

Or Diablo Stradas , which are supposedly very similar .....

and polit road are close too.

The Pilots may be good, but they're not "close" in the sense that MD86 is talking about (and I doubt they handle wet-weather nearly as well).

The Pirelli Diablo Stradas are built by the Metzeler factory on exactly the same tire belt technology in the exact same factory as the Metzeler Z6's, two production machines over according to the front tire DOT imprint codes.

The tread patterns between the Z6 and the Stradas are almost identical (the Strada's tread-groove pattern has more angular corners rather than flowing curves, but follow the same basic pattern in layout; the Z6's have one extra set of grooves for each four on the Stradas [i.e. - five on the Z6], an extra connector channel in the grooves, and what appears to be slightly deeper grooves). They are about as similar as any two tires can be and not be absolutely identical.

Some pics to compare:
Pirelli Diablo Stradas (left) VS. Metzeler Z6's (right)


Michelin PowerPilot CT2 VS. Michelin Road Pilot CT2 VS. Michelin PilotSports


Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[the wind]

no cp thats road not power

[The CyberPoet]

OK, I went back and tossed in an image for the road-pilots also... as well as the pilot-sports (which are the closest in tread pattern from what I can see; the pilot-sports' tread actually look very, very much like the Z4's that were the Z6's precursors from 2000 through 2004 or so).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[the wind]

OK, I went back and tossed in an image for the road-pilots also... as well as the pilot-sports (which are the closest in tread pattern from what I can see; the pilot-sports' tread actually look very, very much like the Z4's that were the Z6's precursors from 2000 through 2004 or so).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

it's the road thats best for rain and mileage out of the three.

[katana96]

What is the best tire for the pre 98?

[The CyberPoet]

There's a variety of opinions...
IMHO: Z6's.

The real question is what kind of riding do you do (what temps, weather, knee-down or lots of highway miles, etc.)?

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[idphillips]

Just my two cents .... I love my stradas, the bike is totally different with them compared to the ones that were on it when i got it. I'm not the most experienced rider and haven't done track days etc ... but I caught myself doing stuff I never would have dreamed of before and they do just as well on water ( within reason and common sense of course )
CP - thanks for the comparison of the Stradas vs Z6's. Might try them next if they're the same as the Stradas, a few extra grooves can only make them better IMHO