I am severely budgetaryly challenged, and just went with the  best (lowest) price I could find.  Turned out to be on ebay at the time, though I have found a couple of catalogs that are comparable.  It is a Kenda I believe.  140/90-15  $45.  The ebay store name is "TIRESCHEAP".  They have several brands.  It was indeed a new one, as advertised, and it is performing well.  I have had it up to 95 so far and the balance is perfect.  My local dealer did the mount/balance, with a new tube as well, for $34.  Very reasonable I thought.  I got this tire about 6 weeks ago.

In my opinion, IRCs are the worst choice, so anything else is a worthy upgrade. Well, IRCs do one thing very well; leave looooong skidmarks on the road. I went with Metzler Marathons. Had plenty of tread left on the greasy stockers but they made me nervous when I rode hard.

Any tips on balancing?

I have a balancer for motorcycle wheels/tires but you can make do using the axles and bearings in the wheel hub and a U shaped arrangement of wood or PCV (schedue 80 pipe) with  V notches cut in the uprights.  Even a correct sized HD cardboard box with notches cut to the same depth on opposing sides would work. Good auto parts stores will have stick on weights to use a balance material unless you can find a good source of spoke weights. I think if one could find some big size split shot for fishing it might work also.

S.L.

Here are some other sites to check for tires:

http://www.americanmototire.com/index.html?lang=en-us&target=d872.html

http://www.swmototires.com/

I haven't tried either one myself.  I get tires at my local dealer......he's got internet prices!