dunlop sportmax

yes I'm an idiot... the Roadsmart Dunlop (my bad) I had a set of these on this year. AMAZING performance!
Secure in the corners wet or dry, terrific 2-up feeling or mono posto. handled my wife myself tank bag with tools and both saddlebags full of gear lunches for our group and extra sleeping gear, and the rear saddlebag as well. Just a great all round performance tire. It's the replacement for the D220 and I loved them. I put on (no joking either) 10,000 miles on them. No tread pattern left. I wanted to make sure that these tires wore evenly and held up to what a normal rider would pull them off, and beyond. (they also - when the slab ruins them by flat spots - round back out when you're gettin it on in the corners so it's just like they never were flat) I'm changing mine out today and placing some soft compound Shinko 005 ( onto my 3rd gen)... My first tire beginning last fall was the D220, they lasted around the same 15,000 miles, then the Sportmax, now the Shinko. The rubber seems stickier, and there is no sheen from the factory mold to scrub them in. I'll let you know how they run out in a week. I've got a 4 day trip planned and will be tearin' into it the entire ride... woohaa:thumbsup:

 

okay UPDATE... the Shinko front 120/70 - rear 190/50... if you are set on cruising the thing... and not hitting the corners as hard as I normally do... the 190/50 rear would be fine. the footprint is wide, and it does stick pretty good in the corners. The one problem I do see is the edge that is lacking. It drops off on the edge of the tire where with the Sportmax had a good 4 inches of contact patch... you get half of that on the rear of the Shinko... they are grippy and love to hit the corners hot and take it through... I can just tell the difference in feel. I think I'm going to check into the 190/55, or 180/55, and 180/50 to see if there is a difference in tread depth for the center. I do notice that the 190 rear helps get more use edge to edge on the front tire though and am even toying with the idea of dropping down the front to a 120/60. I'll keep updating when I get more feedback from these tires and the ones I plan on trying out. I'm getting deals on these tires so I thought I better try them as I would any other tire.

until next posting..

 

try the 003's if you like the 005's
don't let the tread pattern of the 003's fool you they are better in the rain then you would think.

 

I'm looking into these as well... I'm tired of people saying that the tires suck that don't even ride them(usually biased inline riders)... how do you know unless you try right? thanks for the heads up...

 

I raced on those when yokohama made them and then yokohama sold to shenko but they are the same compound.
great tire if wear is not an issue, for the most part I used the medium compound.
soft IMO would be good cold weather tire.

 

Yah I usually run the med in the rear and soft in the front... security baby :thumbsup: I still like to make sure I can scrape the pegs... (I know on the 3rd gen it's not hard but you know how it goes... where ever you're scrapin peeps behind you are watchin :tongue:

 

best tires ive used so far is still the BT-016's, great for the street and track, and only $200/set

 

the real issue here is running a 190/50-17 on a rim designed for a 180-55-17. A 190 requires a 6in. rim (unless that's what you have). By using the 190 on a 5.5 you're flatting the contact patch out and actually have less of a footprint at lean not to mention taking a chance of loosing the bead under load.

 

That specific tire though has a different shape than say the standard is to be honest. I see where you are with this train of thought and I've ben preaching it for a long time as well. I just wanted to try a bunch of different things this year on that bike and this is one of them. The 50 in the 190 make sthe tire -look and feel- like a cruiser tire... it's really flat in the center without the slope. and as for the 5.5/6" rim... I have been looking into this... I do remember something about these rims being 5.5?... I can't remember as of right now it's been years... I really haven't looked into it in too much detail. But you've put a bug in my ear so I'm going to now. Thank you for your advice.

 

this very subject has been covered in Sport Rider magazine before. If you want go to the Sport Rider forums and they can probably refer you to that article.