Track only tire selection

[castertroy]

J.R. hope your watching this

OK so it's time to start the season of trackdays up again.

I'd like to do about 10 track days this year on the RMZ. I have a set of Dunlop slicks on my wheels with really no true idea of how much life left in them. I ran one track day in november on them without warmers and had a blast once the temp rose above 50 and I could get some heat into them.

But this year I got some warmers and hope to make the most of every minute.

I don't race....and I'm not UBER fast...I'm intermediate with every track organization I'm in (NESBA, STT & MotorcycleExcitement)

Does it make better sense to buy some Q2's at 1/2 the cost of slicks and afford more days track days this year, or suck it up and buy slicks and make the days I can afford stickier than Bill Clintons Cigar?

[cj_desmit]

Personally, if your not racing and running at the intermediate pace I'd save my coin for more track time and go for the Q2's... Or some other "super" sport tire. You won't even need tire warmers... Just a easy lap or two and you should be good to go. I have heard nothing but awesome things about the new Q2's as well and am in the process of throwing some on my GSXR for this year. Look around for the best price, I know I found the set I got (120/70 & 180/55) for $199 shipped! Can't beat that!

[castertroy]

That's kinda what I was thinking.....so I picked up some Q2's delivered to the door for $183 off Wera

I'll see how that does at Shenandoah

[J.R.]

Im watching

I saw you had troubles with the Q2..? The RMZ swingarm is a narrow bitch huh? I have the rear wheel on mine pulled as far forward as possible to keep a shorter wheelbase. The ONLY reason it works is I had to take off a little extra weld that was sticking out like a nipple. (its where the outer arm is welded to the inner cast section). No biggie, just hit the weld buildup with a flapper and smoothed it out without taking too much off
Another possible solution would be to scoot the tire back to where the swingarm is slightly wider, but that would lengthen the wheelbase, and I didnt have a long enough chain

[castertroy]

Yeah no such luck for me....I butchered the piss outta that Q2 and STILL no luck. Even took my dirt chain and pulled the axle back as far as it would go and tried...no luck.

Burned THAT $100 like a cigarette

Ended up with the conti SM

Didn't work nearly as well as the slicks....so I MAY bite the bullet and buy more slicks, but I need to do Patriot in July to really see.

I Loved Shenandoah though so I'll be doing several more of those days in late summer/fall. Just likely on slicks

[cj_desmit]

You may want to try out the... dare I say... Shinko slicks. I personally haven't used them but I have heard mixed reviews on them. May be worth a go at under $200 a set. Just a thought...

Or any other supersport tire for that matter... I believe the BT03RS comes in a 150 and 160 rear.

[J.R.]

As far as slicks go, 160 Michelin is the widest and Dunlop 170 is the narrowest.. You can get D-lop slicks for under $340/set. Mammoth Motorsports in CA, and the rep from Miller Motorsports here in Utah can get them, but Im sure there are other sources at that price. The reason for the drastic price drop is all of these Dunlop's are whats left of the 2010 stock that was supposed to be sold to the pros, before the AMA pro series disappeared.

[fish_bate]

Go with a set of good slicks. Michelin, Bridgestone, Dunlop. They're all good. Keep the heat cycles to an absolute minimum with your tire toasters and it'll be worth it. You can get a lot of time out of a set of slicks just as long as you keep them hot from the first session to the last session.

[crofrog]

I'm sorta curious about this too.

Do people think the shinko's are stickier than contiforce sm's?

I don't really see much need to spend the money on good slicks when I'm not actually racing. It doesn't really matter if I can't gas it out of the corner or brake quiet as hard.

[gp637]

Power Ones. Best street/track tire I've been on in 30 years of riding.

[Gutzy]

Power Ones. Best street/track tire I've been on in 30 years of riding.

+1, these are a great option. But they cost just as much as slicks almost.

[Dave..id]

Bridgestone supermoto cut slicks are beyond amazing.... I have them on my 690smc and they stick like shit to a blanket and give you mountains of confidence.... I'm at 1k miles on them now and the rear Has about 100-200 miles left in them and the front has another rear in it.... Bearing in mind the stock rear that came with it was chewed out at 1700 miles lol

They heat up super quick on the street ad I can't wait to test them out on the track!

[dakh]

IMHO 003RS is an Ok big track practice tire and available in 140 and 150.

For about 2x the price, get the soft compound Dunlop slick in 165, it'll likely fit in the swingarm no problem (it's narrow and tall), will last a long time and the grip outta that thing is riduculous.

Bridgestone makes a good road race slick in SV650 sizes, don't know how wide is it - if you have a good bridgestone support locally try that one.

[dakh]

Bridgestone supermoto cut slicks are beyond amazing.... I have them on my 690smc and they stick like shit to a blanket and give you mountains of confidence.... I'm at 1k miles on them now and the rear Has about 100-200 miles left in them and the front has another rear in it.... Bearing in mind the stock rear that came with it was chewed out at 1700 miles lol

They heat up super quick on the street ad I can't wait to test them out on the track!

FWIW.. I loved it too but killed it about 3x faster than a dunlop SM slick. And those don't last nearly as much as the road race slick to begin with. For big track practice use at a good pace, those might be a bit too short lived. Depending on the track grip of course.

[dakh]

Oh yea another thing, rode the same track with Bridgestone supermoto front slick and it was a chatter fest. I kind of know my way around Dunlop tire chatter issues at this point but the bridgestone slick was not as cooperative. Put road race front tire (dunlop superbike slick) and got no chatter whatsoever, none. I think on a motard unless the track and ambient are pretty hot you'd be better off with tire warmers running superbike slicks but they sure worked good for me.

On hypersport tires, tire warmers are not as critical. On supermoto slicks, I don't even bother with warmers oftentimes if it's hot outside, they heat up so fast.

[fish_bate]

I have gotten chatter from the BT-003 RS'. Initial break-in; no chatter. Slightly worn; chatter. 75% worn; no chatter. Also, the Bridgestones are very sensitive to tire pressures. One or two pounds in either direction will result in a very noticeable change in performance. I'm going to Pirelli next. Motorcycle Superstore has Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsas on sale with free shipping. Just over $290 shipped!!

If you're not racing or running frequent track days, you don't need slicks.

You definitely don't need tire warmers to have fun, even with slicks. But, the big advantage of having tire warmers is that you don't have to spend two laps getting up to full pace. You can go full out right from the start, giving you more time to find your rhythm. Your pace will increase because you're never asking the question, "Are my tires warm enough?" Once you try them, you'll never look back. You can get reasonably good ones now for $200 on ebay.

[kirkz]

Many people have their preferences concerning tires. What people need to understand all the tires are different. Concerning the dunlop slick vs. the bridgestone supermoto slick. The dunlop is a road racing tire with a very stiff carcass. You run much higher tire pressures with dunlops than bridgestone. The bridgestone is a lighter carcass tire that runs a pressure apx 19.5 psi cold in the front. Because of the geometry of the tire, pressure and the tire weighing 1 lb. lighter than the dunlop, it requires you to change your suspension setting. You dont load up the front of your bike as much with a Bridgestone as you do with the dunlop because of the stiffness of the dunlop carcass. Because you did'nt change anything you were getting chatter. If you make adjustments the Bridgestone actually turns faster have better grip under braking. Alot of testing helps each team understand the strengths and weaknesses of each tire type. If you dont test and change things then noone ever gets the most performance from their tire no matter what brand type. The new Bridgestone R-10 tire is much better than the Dunlop NTECH tire. You just have to go out change stuff around to get the most performance from a tire.

[dakh]

Many people have their preferences concerning tires. What people need to understand all the tires are different. Concerning the dunlop slick vs. the bridgestone supermoto slick. The dunlop is a road racing tire with a very stiff carcass. You run much higher tire pressures with dunlops than bridgestone. The bridgestone is a lighter carcass tire that runs a pressure apx 19.5 psi cold in the front. Because of the geometry of the tire, pressure and the tire weighing 1 lb. lighter than the dunlop, it requires you to change your suspension setting. You dont load up the front of your bike as much with a Bridgestone as you do with the dunlop because of the stiffness of the dunlop carcass. Because you did'nt change anything you were getting chatter. If you make adjustments the Bridgestone actually turns faster have better grip under braking. Alot of testing helps each team understand the strengths and weaknesses of each tire type. If you dont test and change things then noone ever gets the most performance from their tire no matter what brand type. The new Bridgestone R-10 tire is much better than the Dunlop NTECH tire. You just have to go out change stuff around to get the most performance from a tire.

This sounds completely backwards. Yes Dunlop RR slicks have super stiff carcass so they don't need nearly as much pressure as other tires. I ran them down to 18 cold /23 hot and the tire wear and temperature coming off the track looks darn perfect. I'm light though, 140lbs w/o gear so I run pressures lower than most. On Bridgestone SM slicks I ran around 25-28 hot, that's where they seemed to be the happiest. And yes I screwed around with suspension quite a bit to tune out the chatter, no bueno.

R-10 is not available in supermoto sizes so no point mentioning it :(

[kirkz]

It may sound backwards but what we are specing is reality as we are working from moto-gp technology applied to supermoto and we have done extensive setup testing with various tire combos. Some of our testers include mark burkhart, troy herfoss, & johnny lewis confirming the amount of testing that has been on different bikes. All bikes are different and some tires work better with some bikes than others. All the tires Dunlop, Bridgestone and Michelin produce good supermoto tires and alot of setup and testing with pressures, off-sets, and temps make each one work well. have fun test, test, test until each one achieves the optimum setup.

kirk

[dakh]

It may sound backwards but what we are specing is reality as we are working from moto-gp technology applied to supermoto and we have done extensive setup testing with various tire combos. Some of our testers include mark burkhart, troy herfoss, & johnny lewis confirming the amount of testing that has been on different bikes. All bikes are different and some tires work better with some bikes than others. All the tires Dunlop, Bridgestone and Michelin produce good supermoto tires and alot of setup and testing with pressures, off-sets, and temps make each one work well. have fun test, test, test until each one achieves the optimum setup.

kirk

Thanks for the info Kirk! Being just a budding club racer and not much solid info available on supermoto setup it's hard to even find the ballpark let alone an optimal setup. Throw in that we race from ~40 to 85 degrees ambient here and it gets even harder to understand what works. Will try running lower pressures in the Bridgestone slick, I was talking about the supermoto specific tire not the RR one. Felt mushy to me but like you said maybe I just need to learn to ride it like it wants to! Thanks again!

Oh yea, any general guidance on what to try to tune chatter out? Specifically on my CRFs (both 450 and 250) the chatter comes on sweepers mid-corner when leaned over and not getting enough maintenance throttle. The scary part was on a road track there was a fast corner like that where even hard on the gas it would just about spit me off, because the corner is cambered and was not be able to keep the load on the front outside of the "chatter zone". Making the bike more or less font-heavy helped a little bit, playing with rebound helped a bit, but only a bit. It happens both on Bridgestone and Dunlop SM slicks but a lot less on Dunlop. Stiff RR front doesn't chatter at all.

[agg2001]

I can't believe no one has recommended the Pirelli superbike pro slick. It sticks like herpes and can last a whole RACE season of SM sprints. Probably 2 seasons of plain track days.

They're <$400 and for the longevity, worth every penny.

[fish_bate]

Thanks for the info Kirk! Being just a budding club racer and not much solid info available on supermoto setup it's hard to even find the ballpark let alone an optimal setup. Throw in that we race from ~40 to 85 degrees ambient here and it gets even harder to understand what works. Will try running lower pressures in the Bridgestone slick, I was talking about the supermoto specific tire not the RR one. Felt mushy to me but like you said maybe I just need to learn to ride it like it wants to! Thanks again!

Oh yea, any general guidance on what to try to tune chatter out? Specifically on my CRFs (both 450 and 250) the chatter comes on sweepers mid-corner when leaned over and not getting enough maintenance throttle. The scary part was on a road track there was a fast corner like that where even hard on the gas it would just about spit me off, because the corner is cambered and was not be able to keep the load on the front outside of the "chatter zone". Making the bike more or less font-heavy helped a little bit, playing with rebound helped a bit, but only a bit. It happens both on Bridgestone and Dunlop SM slicks but a lot less on Dunlop. Stiff RR front doesn't chatter at all.

Exactly the same symptoms I'm getting with the BT-003's! Two heads are better than one. Let's try to help each other out.
I spent two days at the track last weekend. My front pressures were high in the morning. Dropped them down. The front more than the rear. Chatter got a little bit better. I dropped my low-speed compression dampening down to almost the softest. That helped a little, but the rear end started to squat mid-corner more than I liked. I find the chatter to be more mid-corner transitioning to the exit. So that makes me think that if it was suspension related, than rebound settings would make sense to change up. When you changed your rebound settings, do you go slower or quicker rebound? Did you do your changes in one and two click increments or did you go pretty extreme?

I can't believe no one has recommended the Pirelli superbike pro slick. It sticks like herpes and can last a whole RACE season of SM sprints. Probably 2 seasons of plain track days.

They're <$400 and for the longevity, worth every penny.

They're a great tire, for sure. But the "Pro" Slick is just a Supercorsa Pro with no tread. Ask any Pirelli guy at the race track. That's not a bad thing, though. They warm up without warmers. The superbike slick won't. Also, like you said, they last a hell of a long time and grip levels are great. They are also the same price as a new set of Supercorsa's. But I'm just on a REALLY tight budget. They're $100 more per set than the Bridgestone DOT's that I use. That's a whole track day! If I had more money, I'd already be running Pirelli's.

[dakh]

Exactly the same symptoms I'm getting with the BT-003's! Two heads are better than one. Let's try to help each other out.
I spent two days at the track last weekend. My front pressures were high in the morning. Dropped them down. The front more than the rear. Chatter got a little bit better. I dropped my low-speed compression dampening down to almost the softest. That helped a little, but the rear end started to squat mid-corner more than I liked. I find the chatter to be more mid-corner transitioning to the exit. So that makes me think that if it was suspension related, than rebound settings would make sense to change up. When you changed your rebound settings, do you go slower or quicker rebound? Did you do your changes in one and two click increments or did you go pretty extreme?

To make sure we're talking about the same thing, mine chatters the front. I tried just about every setting I can and swapped out some tires and components as well. The only two parameters that I found make a big enough difference to be able to tune the chatter out completely (or almost completely) is the front to back balance of the bike and front tire. Other things do help, 16.5 wheel, different compression/rebound, short triples etc. but on my bike they mostly just move the chatter point around or change frequency.

Surprisingly it chatters all the same on both stock MX suspension and an SM revalved one, although I don't have good confidence that the revalve is done to eliminate it.

[fish_bate]

Your issue is different then. I'm getting chatter on the rear tire but it reverberates through the whole bike. At first it was hard to tell where it was coming from. As my tires wear it's getting less and less noticeable.

[dakh]

Your issue is different then. I'm getting chatter on the rear tire but it reverberates through the whole bike. At first it was hard to tell where it was coming from. As my tires wear it's getting less and less noticeable.

That sort of makes sense, less grip => less chatter. How's the tire wear pattern looking like?

[fish_bate]

There's cold tearing on the "medium" compound on the rear when I run anything higher than 23 pounds. If I run a bit less than that it wears a bit quicker than I'd like, but it's consistent. And since I don't have tire warmers, running those cold pressures makes the first couple laps of any session a bit squirmy.