Tires for a stock '81 Special

[TooLax]

Figured I would stir the pot a little here. I am shopping for tires and have always run Continentals (and have been very pleased). But there is an esteemed member of this community ( I say that with respect as he has helped me a great deal with his wise counsel) who swears by the new Dunlop Elites. I grew up with Honda and Yamaha bikes with Dunlops and Bridgestones
and they were, shall we say, less than desireable!

Whats everybody running and why?

Thanks, Duane

[dbeardslee]

I just put a set of Bridgestone S11's on Betsy last week. I went around and around looking at different tires and checking the reviews. Couldn't find a bad review for the S11's. They have the 110/90/19 size (and I wanted a little bigger contact patch and the additional load rating up front), they're dual compound rubber, and the clincher - they were delivered to my door for $135.98 for the set. So far I'm loving them, but that's coming off a set of worn out Chicken Skins, so old wagon wheels would probably have been an improvement .

[Ivan]

I had an Elite 2 on the rear for a while, and it gripped well and rode nicely. The tread didn't wear too fast. Alas it was old, really old and the rubber cracked to the cords.

I am on my second Dunlop 404. They don't grip as good as the elite and wear quickly. I am only on about 1500 miles and the tread is less than half.

Front tire is a Cheng Shien. Cheap, grips well, and tread on the last one lasted about 10k miles.

[fredintoon]

Figured I would stir the pot a little here. I am shopping for tires and have always run Continentals (and have been very pleased). But there is an esteemed member of this community ( I say that with respect as he has helped me a great deal with his wise counsel) who swears by the new Dunlop Elites. I grew up with Honda and Yamaha bikes with Dunlops and Bridgestones
and they were, shall we say, less than desireable!
Whats everybody running and why?
Thanks, Duane

Hi Duane,
to quote Rudyard Kipling:-
"There are four and twenty ways of chanting tribal lays
and every single one of them is right."
Same with opinions about tires.
On the front I'm running the cheapest Asiatic tire the dealer had in stock.
On the rear I'm running a radial TwinTire because it has a flat profile and it wears like iron.
On the sidecar I'm running the Vredestein car tire it came with which don't seem to be wearing at all.
Things are different with a sidecar.

[DiverRay]

Just to pop in, I run the Dunlop E3's on my Midnight Special. I DO run a 140/90/16 on the rear, and the 100/90/19 on the front. On the "Standard", I run an E2 rear, and the E3 110/90/19 Front.(It's easier to get the big front tire on a standard, cuz of the brakes). I usually get about 15K miles out of a set, and I COULD get more out of the fron, but I just change out the set.

[CatatonicBug]

Though I am running the cheapest asiatic tire the streetbike shop had, I understand the Dunlop Elite III's are very saught-after. I have seen the name pop up in other places as well, touting their desireability.

[Dragon Tamer]

I have the E3's on the Dragon and the rear tire now has around 12,000 mi on it. I just put an E3 on the rear of my maxim and if you park the two bikes side by side the tires don't look any different. Both bikes now drive like they were on rails, there is NO tendency to follow tar snakes or other snarly portions of what passes for roads around here. A riding buddy of mine had the Bridgestones on his Royal Star Venture and wore them out in under 7,000 miles. He then put the E3's on, say's the first thing he noticed is that it looks as though he will have to replace the foot boards before the tires. It is impressive to watch him rip around a curve with the sparks just a flying off of the footboards on that huge machine. Nice part about the E3's is that they are not all that expensive compared to say a set of Metzlers.