Ducati Monster Forum

Last season commuting to and from college just once each way resulted in some squaring of my rear tire.

~140 miles each way in blistering heat, all highway.

After making this trip my rear tire on the 696 was noticeably squared.

I'm wondering if lowering the PSI a bit, maybe to the minimum recommended psi or 1-2 lower will reduce the amount of squaring as a result of slab riding.

My only other option is light up the rear tire and wag the bike back and forth and hopefully round it out a bit.
^ - this option sounds more fun.

Any other recommendations?

Next time you get tires buy something that is more for touring. Like a Pilot Road 2, it has a harder compound on the center.  I do not know what tires come stock on the newer monsters.

In the meantime maybe change your route up and find more curves.

I'm in the same situation 88 km total on autobahn with about 10km of it curves near my house.

I went with the Pilot Road 2
so far not bad, and the profile is more aggressive than the stock so the corners fall in faster.

The problem is, I will only be making this trip 3-4 times this season.

All my other riding very "spirited" and on some nice twisties.

I don't want to sacrifice grip and control when riding by getting a touring tire when I'm only on the highway a limited number of times.


I'll look into this. Getting new tires put on for the season. If it wasn't for those couple highway rides I'd get Pilot Pure's, but they would almost certainly square off, even on just one 130m trip.

I hit the twisty on pilot 2.  Even with that, I had to do 3 tire changes last season alone due to wear. 

The non dual compound got to be too expensive to replace.  I am sticking with dual compound.

http://www.michelinpowerpure.com/en/michelin-2ct-technology.html#2ct- (http://www.michelinpowerpure.com/en/michelin-2ct-technology.html#2ct-)

Interesting diagram of the 2CT and Pure. Basically the same dual compound tire however the pure has more of the softer compound sooner. The 2CT has majority of the stiffer compound.

There is a whole thread on the power pure, going to look into that for my next set. Hopefully the stiffer center compound minimizes the squaring. Based on some reading I just did dropping the psi slightly can help reduce squaring as well.

Im not to judge but most people dont really go over the edge on the street whe nit comes to a sport tire. I have the pilot road 2ct at i think 13,000 miles now. its squared, but still lasting. I took it to 3 trackdays and it was very sticky, you can feel it slip it a bit if it got really hot and you were super aggresive, but even then,  i dont think you can reach that on the street.

MY .02...just a buy a spare rear wheel, and put a hard slab ridin' kind of tire on it and do a wheel swap when you know you are going to do your commute and the rest of the time, you'll have your whatever-floats-your-boat kind of tire on regularly...and this way, you'll also remember to check your chain tension/alignment and adjust as necessary maybe a lil more frequently...

What size engine do you have feeding that 13,000 mile rear tire?!?

Im running a 180 PR2 on my 950supermoto and it's almost toasted at 4500 miles :o

S2R1000 Pilot Road 2ct. Its pretty squared off, but it still has tread so  whatever. :P, i wont change it until the cords start showing.

A lot of things factor into life. 70% of it is highway miles, 30% is low speed commuter miles, also the type of pavement you ride on. Concrete i would assume is much rougher than asphalt.

also a supermoto is ridden different.  [thumbsup]

I got 9k on my stock Pilot Power... Roughly 10k so far on my current Pilot Power 2, with some squaring off. Not nearly as square as the original Power was. It's now needing replacement, as I am feeling the wear edge when the tire rolls. Going with the Pilot Road 2 for my next, figure I'll get 50k out of it.  ;D

Most of my ride is short commute, with occasional trips passing 200 miles, both freeway and mountain. I definitely don't ride agressive (except 0-60  [evil]), because my tires seem to last so damn long.

Huh. I remember when i bought my pr2. I rode to dimby and back, 1200 miles and the rear had already started to square up. Most of that was slab.

I would think raising it slightly to minimize the amount of tire that is subjected to squaring would be more ideal, but not sure either way

could that be from riding on the tire that long and heat being a factor.. rather then the tire hardly warming up on short commutes?

Probably not much heat.  10 hours of hard rain put a stop to that ;)

Tire squaring?  What's that?  Oh, right, I live in the mountains...  However, I run ST tires all the time and they serve we well, even on Deals Gap and such.  I'll get the occasional slide from the rear on heavy handed corner exits, but that's about it ~

JM

I'm not to judge, but most people can't ride for shit.   :-*   Come check my tire, you'll find no chicken strips.

My friends all went out and bought Japanese 600 and 1000's and I took my time learning on a 250.

Try keeping up with sbk's on a 250 that tops out at 105, you will learn to ride well real quick. Having the 696 now, I have no problem hanging and when I lead, a few drop off.

I don't think just cuising down the highway wears the tire that much.  It's stopping, accelerating, and changing direction when the wear occurs, when the tire slides against the road.

You would think, but a few hundred miles on the center patch sure as shit wears it out.

Maybe so. Im just relaying my experience with the pr2.

Its not a bad tire. In fact it sticks so well in the rain you can ride in a really unlawful manner.

This is on a ktm 950smr. No burnouts. Lots of short wheelies and throttle on exit.

Im just not destined to get 8000+ out of a rear tire.

agree. the pilot road 2 gives me way more confidence in the rain than the BT016 that was stock

Yup.

When the tire carcass bends, it makes heat. More pressure = less bending = less heat in the rubber = "harder" rubber = less wear.

Decreasing the pressure would "weaken" the tire, resulting in more deformation at the contact patch and faster wear. Ever picked up a nail while riding? I have. When I rolled to a stop, I had a 6" wide section of Pilot Road rear tire that was essentially liquid because there was no air pressure keeping the tire round.

If you know you're going to be making a slab run, stop by a gas station and add a few PSI.

thanks for the confirmation - i had heard it somewhere and been employing that trick for awhile, but started to think i was imagining things

I would give the Pilot Road 2 a shot.  I've had them on my ZX-12 / ZRX / FJR / Sprint ST and they've been awesome.

Keep in mind - the "sport touring" compound of today has the same capabilities as a race level tire of a few generations ago... at least according to the guys at Cornerspeed.  You may just be surprised  [thumbsup]  I have seen guys on the track whip around on PR2's in the A group all day long without incident, for what its worth.

Cheers,
Adam

Take your cage for your long highway trip.  Who'd want to subject their bike to that kind of abuse, anyway?   ;D

Seriously, if you really want significantly higher mileage between changes you just get harder tires.

My preference is for Pilot Power or Pilot Pure, though I can barely tell the difference on the street.  I've also tried Pirelli Diablo Rosso and 2CT Michelin models with little variance, for what that's worth.  I though the Rossos were going to wear longer, but they really went off quickly at some point.  Oh well......

Sage advice from a guy who does well to get 2500 miles on a front and MAYBE 3k on a rear...so take it with a grain of salt.

I've gotten 7000 on a pilot race that i ran on the street after i felt it wasn't good enough fir the track anymore. I was pretty impressed with that.

I usually get 2x the mileage on fronts vs rears.

I would try a Pilot Road 3, they have just came out.