Front tires

[DirtFlier]

On both of my bikes, the front tire is starting to get thin and a replacement is in the cards. My NT now has 14,500+ on its front Pilot Road 3 and will be the first to get a change while the NC700XD has a bit over 10k on the front tire. The NT is not a twisty road bike for me so a lot of that mileage was done on fairly long trips and its probably the highest mileage ever (?) on a front tire for me. I love that even at that distance there is negligible cupping so the tires "singing" on curves is almost non-existent. At least to me, Bridgestones were the worst for cupping.

Michelin has dropped the "Pilot Road" name so all the replacements, unless you can find in-stock, older PRs are called "Road." Both my bikes are already fitted the Road rears..

 

[Rusty_Iron]

I will be replacing my first Road 5 Saturday. I have 10600 miles on it. The previous PR4 had 16000 miles on it. One notable difference between the two, beyond the mileage, during aggressive braking the PR4 would slightly "follow the road" while the Road 5 doesn't. This occurred when treadwear is near wear bars.

 

[junglejim]

Have fun tire shopping. The one thing you can seem to count on is that whatever you saw last time has most likely changed. Even if a manufacturer makes the same model it may well come from a different factory or even a different country now.

I just put new Michelins on and the rear is a Road 5 and the front is a Trail 5 (19"), but both have road tread. After 4K miles I know they are an improvement over the Metzler Tournace that I was running. In my experience the premium tires perform better than the "value" tires. I tried Bridgstone T30s, Shinko, and Tourance, that had good prices and mediocre performance. I've had good luck with Michelin, Avon, and Pirelli (premium line) tires.

My OEM Bridgestones, T30s, PR3s, and PR4s, cupped a lot, but that may be caused by hard front braking by the rider. The Tourance, Perillis, and Road 5 show no sign of cupping (same rider). The Avons cupped slightly. Sort if a crap shoot.