Sport Touring Tire Performance Over The Long Haul

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New tires are a gift to motorcycle handling, fresh rubber turning your bike into a dance partner with nimble feet and newfound agility.  Yet tires do not stay perfectly round for long as accumulated miles flatten rubber eliminating the roundness of honeymoon handling bliss.  Much of a tire’s life is spent squared off and how a tire handles at mid-life is a concern of many a rider.

How does your worn tire compare to other tires on the market?  Do you just keep buying the same tire year after year out of loyalty and habit, or is there a better tire out there?  Comparing tires at every stage of their life is nearly impossible.  Unless you have two of the same bikes, clone yourself and follow yourself as you ride for thousands of miles, you will never truly be able to control for every variable and compare tires at every stage of their life from new to replacement.

We here at Road Dirt have the same questions you do, but also have the resources to answer them.  We have the luxury of twin bikes and nearly twin riders who are willing to follow each other around nose to tail all riding season to find the answers to your tire questions.  This is the second year of our sport touring tire shootout and like last year, my long term riding buddy, cousin and guest tire tester Dave “White Girl” Wensveen and I mounted two popular sport touring tires to our twin 5th generation Honda VFR800s and started logging miles.

Saying we followed each other nose-to-tail for the life of the tires is not a figure of speech.

Last year, Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV easily outhandled and outlasted Pirelli’s Angel GT by a wide margin.  It was not even close.  Cries from both of my readers asked about the popular Michelin Pilot Road 6.  So, by request, we mounted Roadsmart IVs and Road 6s on our VFRs and took to the road seeking answers.

Brand new, Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV outhandled Michelin’s Road 6, but not by much.  Both tires were far nimbler than Pirelli’s Angel GT, but the Michelins narrowed the handling gap.  Bouncing frequently from bike to bike, we could both tell the difference.  No sport touring tire we have tested handles like a brand new Dunlop Roadsmart IV.

However, that was new.  Adding a few thousand miles might change the results.  So that’s what we did.  Mostly.

Part of the mileage pile up was supposed to come from a loop of the Pacific Northwest which I failed to make after my trusty VFR succumbed to electrical gremlins, stranding me just short of Montana.  Dave completed the loop while I limped home and spent a week tearing into my bike’s electrics.  Therefore, for this test, he had an extra thousand miles on his Dunlops.

Bike electrics fixed, we pointed our VFRs south to California to soak in the Pacific Coast Highway and find our next testing grounds, the Santa Cruz Mountains.  We used these roads last year with the Roadsmart IV and Angel GT at the same time of year with the same tire mileage, so with conditions (almost) exactly the same as last year, comparisons between all three tires should be valid.

Dave Wensveen (at right) with fellow VFR pilot and riding buddy Trevor Alexander.  We followed the Pacific Coast Highway from our Pacific Northwest home as far south as we could until the landslide past Big Sur made us turn back.

As we rode around Alice’s Restaurant in Woodside, it was clear that even with 3,600 miles on them, the Dunlops still handled smartly.  Tip-in was still effortless and required little bar pressure to initiate.  A little less nimble than new, but not by much.  New, the Dunlops have a barely discernible tendency to not like being upright with an ever so slight on center wiggle that you could only tell if you rode another tire back-to-back.  The Roadsmart IVs want to be on edge and tell you as much throughout the bars.  As Dave observed during last year’s testing, “If you came from a cruiser to this bike (the VFR) and the Dunlops, you would be fooled into thinking it was unstable.”

Thousands of miles had eliminated that straight line characteristic, and the Dunlops were now more relaxed when upright, but the sharp handling remained.  Not only was turn initiation still quick, but the Roadsmarts responded to mid-corner line changes effortlessly.  For me, all it took was a slight change in body position to tighten a line, or even expand the turn radius and hold that new line to the exit.  At the end of a turn, they would snap upright as slowly or quickly as you would like.  Both Dave and I agreed that the Roadsmart IV responded to every rider input easily, even thousands of miles into their life.

As of this photo, the Road 6s (left) had a thousand less miles than the Roadsmart IVs (right).  Yet the Dunlops still handled slightly better.

However, Michelin’s Road 6 was not far behind.  Michelin’s sport touring flagship tire, even with a thousand miles less wear than the Dunlops, required only slightly more bar pressure to initiate a turn.  Once in a turn, the R6s were very stable, and would still change lines mid corner if asked, you just had to ask with a slightly firmer hand.  At turn exit, the R6s would snap upright, but were a touch slower than the RSIVs.  The Road 6 is a great handling tire, but still falls a bit short of the Roadsmart IV.

To confirm our findings, we gave both of our bikes to fellow tourer Trevor Alexander, our Tail Gunner who munches miles on a 6th generation VFR shod with R6s as well.  After much bike swapping, he agreed with our findings: the Michelins are a great handling tire, but the Dunlops are superb, and either tire runs circles (literally) around Pirelli’s Angel GT.

“I wouldn’t take a Pirelli Angel GT if you were to give it to me for free,” Dave said as we debriefed at the famous Alice’s Restaurant in Woodside.  “Unless it was for a straight slab Iron Butt ride.  I can’t recommend the Angel GTs to anybody.  The whole test puts the Pirellis on the shelf for me.”

All of the roads around Alice’s Restaurant south of San Francisco are smooth and twisty sections of tarmac, perfect test beds for handling.

Dave said that over his drink as he looked at me, knowing I used to be a Pirelli Angel GT rider for countless thousands of touring miles.  Faithful are the wounds of a friend.  I agreed with Dave.  When it comes to handling, both new and worn, Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV is an easy winner, Michelin’s Road 6 is a close second and Pirelli’s Angel GT is a very distant third.  Both new and worn, nothing comes close to the Dunlops.  “The Dunlops are more sporty,” Dave added.  “Even with the mileage, the Dunlops at 3,600 miles feel like the Michelins did brand new.”

This brought us to a conclusion neither of us had ever considered.  While Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV wins the handling test, both new and mid-life, they might not be for everybody.

“It’s an expert level tire,” Dave stated.

We put over 2,700 miles on this trip alone to test mid-life handling.  This meant frequent tire checks and bike swaps.  However, for parity, we only tested handling when we could unload the bikes of their camping gear.  Here, at the summit of Monitor Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we check for wear.  There may also have been a mid-July snowball fight.

We agreed that the RSIVs handle like hypersport tires, which maybe, just maybe, might not be the best for an entry level rider trying to learn the fundamentals of bike control.  Roadsmart IVs love to turn and I could tighten a line with something as subtle as head position, which might not be desirable for a newbie with few fundamentals or developing body mechanics.  Sport oriented riders like Dave and I want a tire that follows our every command instantly, but a new rider might find such responsiveness unnerving.

Michelin’s Road 6 provides a bit more stability for a learning or intermediate rider.  It still handles superbly, but is a touch less responsive to inputs, both large and subtle, which could benefit a rookie rider trying to learn basics and gain confidence.  The instant responsiveness of the Dunlops might not be for everybody.

Nearly two weeks on the road gave us plenty of time to compare tires.

However, for the rest of us, especially riders like Dave and I who ride touring sport bikes, or anyone wanting the best handling tire available, no sport touring tire we’ve ridden yet comes close to handling like Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV, new or thousands of miles in.  Over beverages at Alice’s Restaurant a thousand miles from home, Dave summed it up-

“The Dunlops are the best handling tire I’ve ever put on my bike.”

Ted