I am going to replace both tires this year. What brand of tire should I buy? I am 230# only ride solo. I will keep my bike forever, its my tushy so I dont buy cheap tires.  

What I did was:

Dennis Kirk, Date 6/21/2008

Part# 540229 Front ME880 100/90H-19 $94.99
Part# 540233 Rear ME 880 140/80HB-15 $113.99
Part# 54143  Inner Tube 100/90 $9.99
Part# 535379 Inner Tube 140/80 $8.99
Part# 535198 Rim Strip 19" $1.50
Part# 535195 Rim Strip 15" $1.50
Shipping $10.00
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$230.96

I had better responsive.

I like a Dunlop K-555 140/80 x 15 for the rear and a compatable one for the front. It is made for the Honda PC800 which is a heavier bike and they last me as long as any I have had. Max

I have 7000 miles on the Metzler tire that I put on the back, still plenty of tread left. The Metzler's really grip the road in all weather conditions and have great tread life.

bill67 wrote on 05/24/10 at 18:46:32:


1+ its excellent

12Bravo wrote on 05/24/10 at 20:04:37:


+1  
My history.  (I weigh about 230.  Bike is a "bagger" (weighs more than stock.  NO, I don't know exactly how much!))

20,000 miles on a rear
25,000 miles on a front
19,000 miles on a rear

If a Perelli can match that mileage, I MIGHT give those a try next time around.

My preference is Dunlop 404, both front and rear. This could become a real quagmire.

Nun-uh --- mebbie not ever, especially not until they figure out whatever yardsticks they are going to use to compare their various tires with.

Mileage is relatively objective, clear cut and such it makes easy "real world" comparisons.

(ignoring riding style, of course)

Cornering handling and such is completely subjective and will get them all tied up in knots unless they define good handling a wee bit "for discussion purposes".

And they haven't quantified a cost or value variable at all (tire cost per mile gets used a lot)


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So far it is a very nice genteel discussion that isn't very far along into any specifics.


But they are doing jest fine so far, so let them run with it a bit and see where it goes.


Many of these discussions just are just brand preference discussions with no technical points discussed at all, so this might just be one of those.


Besides, why does everything have to be hard?  Why can't you have a nice quiet motorcycle tire brand discussion?


I like Perelli and I like Dunlop jest fine as the "start" price isn't as painful as Metzler.


You got some wear out data given above on Metzlers, 20,000 miles into $120 = 0.6 cents per mile which likely pretty much covers your highest mileage bike tires.   Most Savage folks don't get 20,000 miles out of a rear Metzler anyway.

Given that most non-IRC tires all handle jest dandy when put on a Savage, I wonder which common brand yields the lowest cost per mile?


Let's get some more ME880 rear tire total mileage numbers from various folks to see what sort of range we come up with.