JQL
Growing old disgracefully
On Saturday I had a new set of PR4s fitted to the bike. I did about 150 miles over the weekend and the beginning of the week in reasonable-ish weather (i.e. no rain though damp roads at times).
Yesterday evening, the heavens opened and we had a frog strangler. The bike was rock steady lane splitting all the way home and I added another 50 miles or so to the tyres.
This evening it was worse, absolutely bucketing it down - torrential rain. Roads flooding and "rivers" running across the roads. This time, while lane splitting, I had to brake rather hard at one point, certainly hard enough for me to expect the ABS to cut in due to the horrendous conditions. But, the ABS wasn't needed and the bike was rock steady, slowing down very smartly indeed (I needn't have braked so hard).
I'm nearly certain that I've got more grip in the wet that the original Bridgestones had in the dry. Certainly way more grip than the Metzler cross-plys had on my old CBR600 and I used to wear those out in 4,000 to 6,000 miles.
Due to the weather conditions, the edges aren't scrubbed-in yet (the chicken strips are still very much in evidence on the edges) so I'm taking the corners a bit gingerly but, the weekend looks reasonable so I'll try to scrub the edges in a bit then.
If you aren't running Michelin PR4s on your NT then do so. Hopefully the new PR5s will be even better when they come out in the spring.
Yesterday evening, the heavens opened and we had a frog strangler. The bike was rock steady lane splitting all the way home and I added another 50 miles or so to the tyres.
This evening it was worse, absolutely bucketing it down - torrential rain. Roads flooding and "rivers" running across the roads. This time, while lane splitting, I had to brake rather hard at one point, certainly hard enough for me to expect the ABS to cut in due to the horrendous conditions. But, the ABS wasn't needed and the bike was rock steady, slowing down very smartly indeed (I needn't have braked so hard).
I'm nearly certain that I've got more grip in the wet that the original Bridgestones had in the dry. Certainly way more grip than the Metzler cross-plys had on my old CBR600 and I used to wear those out in 4,000 to 6,000 miles.
Due to the weather conditions, the edges aren't scrubbed-in yet (the chicken strips are still very much in evidence on the edges) so I'm taking the corners a bit gingerly but, the weekend looks reasonable so I'll try to scrub the edges in a bit then.
If you aren't running Michelin PR4s on your NT then do so. Hopefully the new PR5s will be even better when they come out in the spring.