radial tires???

[greatnw]

I'd put them on in a heartbeat. Put a Metzler rear radial on a 1984 Honda V65 Sabre. It still had the bias on the front. The difference was really hard to believe. Certainly no problems. Triumph sold a bike from the factory with that setup, bias front, radial back. I printed something Metzler had on their website when the shop mounting the radial was balking. They mounted the tire. Metzler did say never to go bias back, radial front.
Technology does move on.... like this website that didn't exist when our xs11's were built!
YMMV.

[motoman]

Just my two cents, but if someone finds, and wants to try radials, go for it. As for me i will stick with what the bike calls for. Besides, when i have been looking, i have not seen any of the sport radials that are rated heavy enough for these bikes.

I also will stick to conventional bias-ply for the XS. It's not my main ride, lest not for LD touring and just don't think the scoots worth putting pricier tires on it. As for weight rating and sport radials, my 730lb. ST1100 runs sport radials all the time, as do thousands of others on the STowners site, and majority of these riders put some serious touring mileage on these scoots yearly. With that, if I were to run radials on the Venturer, it would'nt be an issue, and that bike tips the scale at 680lbs. with half a tank of fuel. Not a whole lot of difference, besides, the 1000lb. 1800Wing runs sport radials too. Those weight rated ratings give lots of leway for liability, and that rating on tire is associated with the speed rating and I don't think there's a scoot out there that's gonna pack a load and rider/pillion at a constant 130+mph for hours on end without recieving a 'performanc' award. That's what those load and speed ratings combined mean and don't think our XS's come even close to that catagory. That info comes from a factory tire rep, not me.

[XS1100 Newbie]

Maybe i will try some of those sport tires next season. Just put a new set of Bridgestone Spitfires on to try.

[cajun31]

been using the spitfires

for that last two changes. Not only do they look good on our bikes they are very good tires in the twisties too. I can't speak for how long they last though. I had periods of extended storage on the last set and didn't trust them so I replaced them with another set. So far so good.