I've just been looking at tyre prices. I'm soon going to need a new front for my Street Twin. It's currently wearing Conti Road Attack 3's. I've been happy with them so thought I'd go with the same. I cannot believe how prices have shot up. For a front tyre, 100 x 90-18 tubed, (because I changed to spoked wheels) it's around £170!!! At first I thought that was a very good price for a pair, but no, it's just the front. Madness! I bought a pair of Pirelli's from Demon Tweeks last month for my newly acquired Kawasaki ZX7R. £171..the pair. Yes, a bargain. But WTF's going on with tyre prices generally? I blame the Russians..or mental Trump..or Brexit..or all of them.
I've been pricing tyres for my Speed Triple and agree, prices are mental. I can get a high performance set of 4 for my car for not much more than 2 for the bike.
To be fair having just looked on two tyres website those Contis are the only ones at that sort of price. Nearly everything else is circa £100 or less. Might be worth looking at other options.
@beerkat I use Avon Storms or Spirit, ones the old name and the others the current name can't remember which way around, on my 900 ST and I find they handle well and are sensibly priced. I'd recommend them. Worth a look, and read some reviews.
Thanks for that. I was hoping to only replace the front, so whatever I go for would need to work with the Conti Road Attack 3 rear. I've read various thoughts about mixing tyre makes, some strongly advise against it. I'll look into it and, depending on price, it might be worth changing both tyres (they've done 8-9000 miles). I'll check out the Avons.
My local bike shop always had a good price on Pirelli Angel ST and I fitted them on my CB500X. I don't know about sizes, but do know that later 500X bikes with a 19" front wheel would need to go to the Angel GT. You mentioned £170 for a single front tyre - I just recently bought a 150/70 R17 Metzeler Tourance rear tyre for my CL500, and it was around that price, ride in-ride out fitted.
I have just paid £290 for a pair of Bridgestone S23s. I did run Metzeler Racetec K3 RRs before fitting my first pair of S23s, however the best deal I could get on the RRs are now £330 a pair. A pair of Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SC V3s that my son uses on his Ducati are now £450 a pair, and he gets less than 3 thousand miles per set. You can't compare car tyres to those on motorcycles. Take the S23s, they have a 3 layer compound on the front, hard centre, soft, sticky on the shoulders, the rear is a 5 compound, hard compound for stability in the centre, medium at the shoulders for traction, and super-sticky edges for deeper lean angles. a motorcycle tyre has a couple of inches contact with the road surface when upright, on corners this can come down to less than half an inch, a car has full width contact, whether on straight roads or corners, and has a greater contact patch, and 4 wheels (normally). Car tyres do not have the same construction complexities as modern bike tyres, hence the higher costs.
Unfortunately It is not allowed to mount tubes on tubeless rims, only tube type rims are suitable for tubes.
Can you expand on this @Iceman ? Who's not allowing it? I have personally used tubes in a punctured tubeless tyre as a means of puncture repair and to run the remaining tread off. The only negative I can think of is the ribbing on the inside of tubeless tyres creating friction spots on the inner tube. Probably a problem if using 2nd hand tubes, but a new one short term, I don't see an issue.
Hi Eldon, there is more to this than one would think, basically the rims for tubless and spoked wheels have different rim profiles, there are many issues that arise, especially with modern bikes with the power, by that I mean capable of the NSL, the tyres can spin up on the rims and tear the tube, also the spoke nipples need sealing, the vlaves need replacing with those suitable for tubeless tyres, you also need a wide heavy duty rim tape. This is a recipe for disaster, and no company will fit the tyres, due to the legalities in the event of any sort of failure or heaven forbid a RTC, then the person would be undoutebly prosecuted. If a person is buying and fitting the tyres themselves then the sole responsibility lies with that individual, and a plea of being unaware will carry no weight, and to further compound matters any insurance policy would be invalidated and not pay out, if a third party was injured then they can take legal action for damages, if awarded then it can lead to serious financial loss. The attached thread gives some information. https://www.tyresafe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TS-Motorcycle-A5-leaflet-PRINT-V2.pdf
