Types Of Motorcycle Tyres
Types of Motorcycle Tyres
Motorcycle tyres are available for many different applications, including: Sport, Sport Touring, Touring, Cruiser, Scooter, On/Off Road, Dual-Sport, Enduro, Motocross and Racing.
Sport / Performance:
Tyres provide excellent grip but may last 1,000 miles (1,600 km) or less. Cruiser and "sport touring" tyres try to find the best compromise between grip and durability. There is also a type of tyre developed specifically for racing. These tyres offer the highest of levels of grip for cornering. Because of the high temperatures at which these tyres typically operate, use on the street is unsafe as the tyres will typically not reach optimum temperature before a rider arrives at the destination, thus providing almost no grip en route. In racing situations, racing tyres would normally be brought up to temperature in advance by the use of tyre warmers.
Touring & Sport Touring:
Tyres are generally not used for high cornering loads, but for long straights, good for riding across the country.Touring tyres are usually made of harder rubber for greater durability. They may last longer, but they tend to provide less outright grip than sports tyres at optimal operating temperatures. The tradeoff is that touring tyres typically offer more grip at lower temperatures, meaning they can be more suitable for riding in cold or winter conditions whereas a sport tyre may never reach the optimal operating temperature.
Sport Street:
Tyres are for aggressive street riders that spend most of their time carving corners on public roadways. These tyres do not have a long life, but in turn have better traction in high speed cornering. Street and sport street tyres have good traction even when cold, but when warmed too much, can actually lose traction as their internal temperature increases.
Track or Slick:
Track or Slick tyres are for track days or races. They may have more of a triangular profile, which in turn gives a larger contact patch while leaned over. These tyres are not recommended for the street by manufactures, and are known to have a shorter life on the street. Due to the triangulation of the tyre, there will be less contact patch in the centre, causing the tyre to develop a flat spot quicker when used to ride on straightaways for long periods of time and have no tread so they lose almost all grip in the wet. Racing slicks are always made of a softer rubber compound and do not provide as much traction as street tyres until warmed to a higher internal temperature than street tyres normally operate at. Most street riding will not put a sufficient amount of friction on the tyre to maintain the slick's optimal tyre temperature, especially in colder climates and in spring and fall.
Off Road & Enduro:
Off road tyres have knobby, deep treads for maximum grip on loose dirt, mud, sand, or gravel; such tyres tend to be less stable on paved surfaces.
Dual Purpose:
When selecting tires for your dual-sport bike, the first thing you need to ask yourself is, ‘what kind of riding will I be doing the most of?’How much dirt are you going to ride compared to pavement? It is paramount that you answer this question honestly before moving forward in the tire selection process. Once you decide what the majority of your riding is going to be, you can start to look at specific tire combinations. The key element in selecting your tires is getting a matched set. Matched set meaning same brand and same model of tire. Keeping your tires in a matched set is very important as they will have the same profile and construction.
Here are some dual-sport and adventure tire suggestions.
90% pavement – 10% dirt: This is a good pavement tire with fair off-road performance.
75% pavement – 25% dirt: For good performance and value these tyres have really good pavement manners as well as behaving well off-road, whether it be on fire roads or trails.
50% pavement – 50% dirt: For real split duty performance these tyres are a real value tire that performs admirably in both conditions.
25% pavement – 75% dirt: This is a toss-up. These tyres are really good off-road but won’t kill you on the pavement and actually have decent wear for such dirt oriented tires.
50/50
80/20