Dave ,"work together as a set" is something  i have never heard or witnessed in my 50 years of riding and owning and wrenching bikes . i have learned that front tires and rear have different requirements as they preform different tasks.  and different compounds and belting make tires run different. there might be some voodoo in picking  a good set for different bikes and applications  .    but a fair amount of pro riders do it till they get a tire sponsor than all bets are off .  however your observation about not mixing radial tires with bias is totally correct . good thread lets keep it going.

Every rear tire I've tried has been worn smoovedafuk out in four to eight thousand miles. Most offered good traction, except for the stock tire.
The ME 880 has over four thousand miles on it and isn't square yet. It's worth noting that the wet traction is a real behavior modifier. I am learning to play with it accelerating out and letting it slip sideways.

At this wear rate I'm seeing a fifteen to twenty thousand mile life.

That means I Wont pay for two  or thre
tire mountings and tubes , do the math.

Well, here I am making my first post - and of course, it's gonna be a tiring one
I'm trying to decide on a new rear tire for the S40 I just bought for my wife, who is an absolute newbie to riding.  The bike has a brand new (Harley branded) Dunlop 401 on it, but the K555 in back is shot.  It appears my best options are to either get a new K555, in the stock size, or go for a Shinko 734... which leads to the usual sizing issue.  There's also the D404 option, but to be honest, I've never been a dunlop cycle tire fan. Here's the numbers as I've found them (rim widths are either recommended rim width or the rim width the tire was mounted on when measuring):
Dunlop K555 - 140/80-15
(3.0 rim, 24.17 diameter, 5.87 width)
Shinko 734 150/80-15
(3.5 rim, 24.45 diameter, 5.91 width)
Dunlop D404 130/90-15
(3.0 rim, 23.95 diameter, 5.15 width)
Shinko 734 130/90-15
(3.0 rim, 24.21 diameter, 5.08 width)

My gut says to get her the 734 in the 130/90 size, while my eyes (and my fat butt) say to go 150/80 - but the rim width bothers me a bit.  She's a bit less than 150 in full gear, and will likely only ever ride solo.  Anybody care to weigh in?

I'm running a Shinko 130 /90 and find the bike handles (leans /turns in ) much better than it ever did with 140 /80 0r 140 90 . I could feel the difference the moment I put it on , I wont be going back to a 140 ever again.

Mike Barnett wrote on 12/13/19 at 13:15:12:


The 130/90-15 is a good size and is almost identical to the original 140-80-15 size.......it is plenty of tire for the Savage.

I ran a 110/90-18 on the back of my Savage Cafe bike - it looks narrow but the tire never suffered for traction or wore excessively quick.  The current "visual fad" is for fat back tires - the motorcycle actually rides and handles better with narrower tires.

When you squeeze a fat tire on a narrow rim - you distort the cross section of the tread and the result is a narrow contact patch.....which is exactly the opposite result of why you bought a fat tire.  The center of the tire will wear out quickly.

Go with the 130/90-15.

My "03" has the Shinko's and my 2011 has the IRC's. Definitely prefer the Shinko in the curves. Think it is smoother for cruise's also. IRC feels a little surer (tracking) at speed though, but that could be a balancing issue. Overall when time comes will replace the IRC with Shinko's as I just like the whole better.

I had posted a tire fitment chart on an early post....it appears I used TinyPic and it is gone.

I have re-posted it here.

Taller profile tires tend to be able to fit on a wider range of rim sizes, and the 130/90-15 fits just fine on the stock Savage rim.

I am not sure why Suzuki chose a 140/80 tire, as it is not a common size and limits your tire choice.......perhaps Suzuki got a really good deal on the tires and only used that size as they could get it cheaply.