Man,, whats with the all caps?

My mute button took care of ol Billy..

I went & checked out the Darkside essay. That guy has some miles on them. I know OF has been running them a long time. Just so happens its time for fresh rubber on the back of mine. I'd want a pretty  tall tire back there. Narrow as can be found, ( I think). Anyone have a source?

It a regular motorcycle tire lasts around 8 to 10 k (optimally and light use) you're not doing much better on a dark side it sounds like.  If you're seein' cords it's shot... so why bother outside of cost?  

I like my tread to wrap around....



My .02

-Roadie

Roadie, he's riding a 700 pound honda flat-six to get his 8,000 10,000 miles.

(he used to get what ?? 4,000 miles with m/c tires ??)

We literally don't know yet how many darkside miles we will get on our Savages yet, but it will likely be somewhere between 15,000 miles and 20,000 miles.  

MMRanch will get higher in that range because his TA Goodrich has deeper thread on it compared to my original chung fooie tire (which is about half worn out now after years and years of roaring squirrels and other intentional abuse (like leaving a nasty 50 ft black streak down Toymaker's long concrete driveway,  hee hee hee)

You need to read up some on the actual experiences of Savage riders instead of relying on Honda flat six guys for your total mileage picture.  

Besides, where are you getting 8-10 miles on the rear tire of a Savage?  I got 5.6 thousand off the original IRC rear tire and folks paying $130 for a premium Metzler rear tire really aren't getting a consistent 10,000 miles out of them.   Most of us only get an averaged 8-9,000 miles out of a premium rear tire and it is not unusual for list members to have to change out their rear tire every year and a half.  And many of us cannot afford to buy Metzler tires -- we are Dunlop or less sort of people.

Darkside tires cost much much less.  Darkside tires do not give up grip or handling, either.  We prove this every year at Dragon run time.

We are constantly amazed at the number of folks who still can't understand the mechanics behind how a m/c tire and a car tire go about gripping the road and what a contact patch means and how they continue to think a round dead soft treaded tire is the only way things can work.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1181496112/15#16

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Kel, the worst you will have to do to make the tire fit is change the bolts inside your fender to flat or rounded head bolts.  You do not have to get the taller shocks unless you want to for leg clearance reasons.  

I run stock shocks and I have a taller and wider tire than MMRanch does.

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Toymaker, sorry I was late to the party.  New job involves some consecutive 12 hr days on the weekends and I find I am reading and posting on my irregular days off more often than not.   Plus my knee is feeling better and I am beginning to work on trying to get my bike back together after getting rear ended in a parking space.

Good deal on the Shocks.... Just need to buy a tire.
I have had the bike since July 06 had 2,100 miles now I am approaching 22,000
I am replacing my back tire every year
Have had the stock
IRC 7.5K
D404 about 9k
and the current Dunlop k???  whatever it is
I put it on in November of last year now it is slick.

Simply tell them you think you need to replace the spare tire on you daughter's 1964 VW Beetle because you noticed it was not holding air very well due to age.

In other words, prevaricate.  

They have to ask you what you are putting it on because there is a legal requirement to for them to make sure the tire matches the speed rating and such for the vehicle you plan to put it on.

Your Savage will go 90mph tops in stock format.  The VW tires we are using are rated for 120 mph at a much much heavier load than the entire bike and you can put on it.  Read up on the tire you plan to get at TIRERACK.COM -- the very best place to find the tire you need.

Take care when mounting the tire to use LOTS of lube and if it won't pop on to the rim at less than 90 psi, stop, deflate it and relube it and try try again.  The tire stretches a bit more at each attempt and eventually it will go on.

Or, as some of us do you can remove some of the unneccessary inner lip rubber with a sharp knife as you are using a tube to contain the air pressure anyway and you don't need that long thin trailing lip of rubber anyway.  It just gets in the way of mounting the tire.

LEAVE THE BEAD PORTION ALONE -- you will be using that.