220 are you dragging or just pimping [sm=pimp.gif]

 

Okay, okay; egg on my face. I expected a flame session re: "yeah, I run 220's" and then, ..well, gee, truth be told,..."no; I've got a race compound 207 on my front!" Sorry guys, I didn't mean to mislead anybody.

That being said, I'll say it again; I do plan to get a 220 for the front. I would consider a front 207 (street) but I think the old heavy 9's are brutal on front and rear tires. The race compound 207 I have on the front now, DOES stickpretty well for being beyond its allowable heat cycles, but it's nearly tread-less. I've run 207's before, and found they're good for about one and a half good riding seasons; roughly about 10months or so. I'll frankly be glad to get rid of that race compound thing, but hey, it was free.

 

Never tried the 207's, I am familiar with the 208gps though. I would not recommend those for the street though.

 

207 F GP

(Did I mention it was free?)

 

sorry that took so long, i'm runnin the stock BT012's right now. havent tried any other type of tire to have a wide enough opinion on it, but im looking to expand my knowledge lol.
another question i have is, im runnin a 190/50zr17 on my rear and the d220 doesnt come in that width from what i can see... is it gonna hurt me to go less? they only have my size rear in the d616 and the qualifier

 

If you go with the 220 in a 180,it will slightly improve your accelleration due to less rotational mass, if anything. You may (barely) notice a difference in cornering.

 

a difference as in less stability? i've never had new tired on this bike yet so i'm sure i will notice quite a difference all together. these bt012s had 3k miles on them i believe when i got it now im up to 7k ive had them slip out on me in the rear a few times and im not a knee dragger so they're kinda makin me nervous nowdays. is that even a normal tire life for this bike? from what i understand they havent been changed since it was bought.

 

No; not less stability, it'll maybe feel a bit less "round" when you lean it over. Hard to explain. If you've ridden an old standard bike on narrow-ish 120'-130's, when you moved up to a 180 size, it felt like you could lean it over and pick a dime up off the street. Moving from a 190 to a 180 width, you'll notice (maybe) just a bit less of a lean-over margin. If you don't ride that "hard" you may not notice anything at all. (Especially if you've never ridden an older bike with more narrow tires.)
However, if you've had your current 12's slip out on you, you'll notice a definite improvement, more than anything I'm speaking of above. I think you'll notice you can corner better with the 180 because the bike won't want to "stand-up" quite as quickly due to physics.

 

at 190 you are actually 10 over spec. The 9 comes with a 180, and running an over-size rear without making proper compensation to the front dimensions as well as the sidewall ratio for the rear will affect cornering and geometry/behaviour while cornering.

Like I said - I found the 220 to be MUCH more stable and confident of a tire - way noticable vs. the Metzler M1 that was on the back.

Notstock> I'm not following you... dragging what? Knee? I've been right to the corner and never even had the need. The 220 holds on *very* damn well.

 

which explains a lot. although my bike did not come with Metzlers on it but i was curious the 220 comes with a 180/55ZR17 now im running a 50zr15 im not totally positive how the whole aspect ratio plays in here but whats the diff between 50 and 55? and if im running 10 out of spec on the back is my front tire supposed to be a 120/70zr17? or am i out of spec on that one also? i was looking for the specs online and didnt see them.