Hey all. I'm not familiar with these tires, but have liked Continental tires in the past. I got them for about $200 a set shipped free on RevZilla. Too soon to tell if I like them, but better than the old square tires that my new to me NT came with. Below is my brief synopsis of my first ride on them, copied from a thread on the ST forum:
Spooned the ContiMotions on today. Whoever OK'd having to take off 3/4 of the exhaust and the giant rear fender to get the rear wheel off, not so great.
The Conti Motions went on really, really easy. First bead popped over, second bead a minute with one iron. I added no weight, and they feel ok. Front maybe a hair out of balance at 40-50, but it felt the same on the old tire. Maybe a different issue? Handling is drastically improved, and the Contis are a nice compromise between stability and falling in. It's hard to judge overall grip. I ran the NT's recommended 36/42, and took it easy for the first 20 miles or so. It was low 40s and damp out, with the majority of the road surface mostly dry with fairly frequent wet spots and puddles. I had a couple front chatters over sneaky individual quarter sized rocks on smooth blacktop, and one little front push leaned over pretty hard on good but damp blacktop. That slide may have been the first time that that portion of the tire had ever rolled over the road.
Once, I was hard on the brakes coming into a corner and felt the back squirm a little, no abs activation.
Overall they felt good, especially for the price. I'm hoping once they have a few miles on them and it warms up (next year) that they will feel and stick well.
To put into perspective, upon returning, 60 miles total, I had 1/4" of chicken strip on both sides of the front, 1/4" or less on the rear right, and none on the rear left.
I will say that I don't think the T31s or T32s I have run recently would have pushed the front. But hopefully the Contis will break in a little better (or at least wear well).
I do wonder if my pressures were a bit high for the ambient temp + moisture. I've settled on 3 lbs low front, one pound low rear on my ST1300 to get acceptable traction at the limit, and that's using more premium tires.
Spooned the ContiMotions on today. Whoever OK'd having to take off 3/4 of the exhaust and the giant rear fender to get the rear wheel off, not so great.
The Conti Motions went on really, really easy. First bead popped over, second bead a minute with one iron. I added no weight, and they feel ok. Front maybe a hair out of balance at 40-50, but it felt the same on the old tire. Maybe a different issue? Handling is drastically improved, and the Contis are a nice compromise between stability and falling in. It's hard to judge overall grip. I ran the NT's recommended 36/42, and took it easy for the first 20 miles or so. It was low 40s and damp out, with the majority of the road surface mostly dry with fairly frequent wet spots and puddles. I had a couple front chatters over sneaky individual quarter sized rocks on smooth blacktop, and one little front push leaned over pretty hard on good but damp blacktop. That slide may have been the first time that that portion of the tire had ever rolled over the road.
Once, I was hard on the brakes coming into a corner and felt the back squirm a little, no abs activation.
Overall they felt good, especially for the price. I'm hoping once they have a few miles on them and it warms up (next year) that they will feel and stick well.
To put into perspective, upon returning, 60 miles total, I had 1/4" of chicken strip on both sides of the front, 1/4" or less on the rear right, and none on the rear left.
I will say that I don't think the T31s or T32s I have run recently would have pushed the front. But hopefully the Contis will break in a little better (or at least wear well).
I do wonder if my pressures were a bit high for the ambient temp + moisture. I've settled on 3 lbs low front, one pound low rear on my ST1300 to get acceptable traction at the limit, and that's using more premium tires.
