Trout
15th December 2005, 16:48
It's time for tires again and I'm thinking of trying something new even though I've had great success with the three sets I've tried so far. I like to experiment.
My experience in the rain is limited. I've only ridden in what I would call 'heavy rain' a few times. The first time was with a nearly worn out set of D401's, and they worked fine. The other times were on a set of BT45V's. On a trip a few months ago, it rained on us all the way home from Missoula to Boise. The Bridgestones performed perfectly fine even though the tread depth on the rear was down to about 3/32". I'm usually an aggressive rider, but will back way off when the road is wet. Maybe that's why I've never felt any slippage or hydro-planing, or maybe it's because my tires worked as expected. Incidentally, on that same trip from Montana, I followed my friend who had a fairly fresh set of ME880's on his 1200C. That rear tire shot a rooster tail of water a mile long and a half mile high, which tells me that it was doing a great job of pumping water from under the tire. My other friend had stock Dunlop whatevers on the back of his RK Custom and they didn't shoot water nearly as far.
In my tire research, when it comes to what works best and worst in the wet, I've found lot's of opinion and stories of 'what my indy said', but little actual experience. I'm skeptical of some tires and their ability to move water, especially when the rear has very little in the way of grooves in the center area of the tire.
Have you had any bad experiences with tires in the rain? What was the experience and what tires were you running?
My experience in the rain is limited. I've only ridden in what I would call 'heavy rain' a few times. The first time was with a nearly worn out set of D401's, and they worked fine. The other times were on a set of BT45V's. On a trip a few months ago, it rained on us all the way home from Missoula to Boise. The Bridgestones performed perfectly fine even though the tread depth on the rear was down to about 3/32". I'm usually an aggressive rider, but will back way off when the road is wet. Maybe that's why I've never felt any slippage or hydro-planing, or maybe it's because my tires worked as expected. Incidentally, on that same trip from Montana, I followed my friend who had a fairly fresh set of ME880's on his 1200C. That rear tire shot a rooster tail of water a mile long and a half mile high, which tells me that it was doing a great job of pumping water from under the tire. My other friend had stock Dunlop whatevers on the back of his RK Custom and they didn't shoot water nearly as far.
In my tire research, when it comes to what works best and worst in the wet, I've found lot's of opinion and stories of 'what my indy said', but little actual experience. I'm skeptical of some tires and their ability to move water, especially when the rear has very little in the way of grooves in the center area of the tire.
Have you had any bad experiences with tires in the rain? What was the experience and what tires were you running?