I hear Pirellis are lightweight. My 190/55 Supercorsa was 13.11 lbs. The 200/55 slick is a pound heavier.

By contrast, the 190/55 Q2 i had was 15.5 lbs.

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Slicks on a road bike, I think yer a wee bit mad !
Yer bike looks savage btw
Ps cold tearing , is not the tire tearing as such , the rubber tears in small pieces, as the tire is not up to optimum operating temp
Only the superbikes n Isle of Man tt run slicks, superstoock don't
If it's a case of finding a tire sticky enough to loose chicken strips, you are looking in the wrong place,well,kinda!

* Last updated by: motero on 7/21/2016 @ 6:31 PM *

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Thanks Motero. Tire opinions are varied. One person loves this and the next guy hates it. So far about a thousand miles on Pirelli Diablo Pros and still sticking like glue, no sepparation of the compound, and still handle good but maybe not as nice as new. I'm seeing the tire wear more toward the center (of course) but it is staying round. I almost never ride unless I'm going to go fast and corner hard. I have the chicken strips down to less than a half inch but doubt I can do any better. the front chicken strips are gargantuan. The rubber rolls off in a more granular fashion than other tires I've used. It still feels very soft and sticky when it gets quite warm. I saw some oily looking residue at the edge of the wear today like some oil was coming out of the tread and getting rubbed over to the edge. It was about 93 F here today. The tires stuck well nonetheless. I think this particular slick is a fine tire for the street just don't get caught in the rain and if you do, go very slow.

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I'm riding usually 8 to 20 degrees Celsius, the roads rarely get hot here , standard road tire gets me almost to the edge on front tire, I'll get ya a pic

Something some people can't figure out-
The edge of the tire is not the edge of the road!

The leading edge of the tire is coming in contact with the leading edge of the contact patch, not the trailing edge!

you can easily do better than half inch strips, invest a little more time in your cornering confidence than in slicks, find a quiet spot, with a few corners, especially if you have a favourite, rights or lefts, practise getting faster through them take the long way though them maybe, so you spend longer with the bike leaned over, not just hitting the apex and exiting asap, sometimes i do this just for fun and to hold a lean for longer, i think you guys dont have too many roundabouts over there? more over passes/on /off ramps.
we got lots of roundabouts, great for getting comfortable with lots of lean, but dont get too focused on amount of lean, as its easy to target fixate, just concentrate on keeping it smooth/progressive
or get in a few track hours, more lean will come
you will be amazed at how much grip regular tires will give.
last night i was riding in the rain, i decided to put it in trc 3 to see how much throttle i can give it before i get tire spin, more than i imagined, i was a bit suprised, good fun, although i did get caught out once taking off from lights, crossed a steel shore lid/cover, manhole, not sure what you guys call them, trc totally cut throttle for far too long as tire spun a lot, it was a little embarrasing, car behind me must of thought i stalled the bike it stumbled so badly!!

* Last updated by: motero on 7/22/2016 @ 3:01 AM *

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I hear ya, motero. Practice, practice and that's what I've always done and will keep doing. I agree, the key is to be in an environment where you never need to leave the practice mode for safeties sake. The track is perfect for that. LOL I'm certain people think I'm a madman round here with how I ride already! Finding a place with good pavement where there is little traffic is unheard of. That's all reasons to do it on the track. I don't think I'l ever rid my tires of chicken strips on the street. LOL If I bother to look at others tires, the chicken strips are massive front and rear so I figure I'm doing ok. Mucho respect on that front tire worn to the edge though!!

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It's only almost to the edge, and that's on my good side !! Much prefer right handers!
Don't know if it's because I'm left handed , or because we ride on the left, meaning I can see more going into right handers and can change my line /commit more

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How about some pics of your lowers? But before you post pics, please wash that damn thing!

Hey! It was clean before it started raining last night!!

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Much prefer right handers!
Don't know if it's because I'm left handed , or because we ride on the left, meaning I can see more going into right handers and can change my line /commit more

Seems to be the case with me too and we ride on the right in NA. Riding on the right, you have to lean your head and shoulders over the center line when apexing a left hand turn and that usually seems to make me take the left hand turns wider...come to think of it, you do the same for right handers so there must be something you're doing to avoid getting winged by oncoming traffic. Maybe you have learned to hang off less in right hand turns so you're leaning the bike harder.

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I have an easier time being smoother left turns, but lean the bike over equally both sides. I do imagine the turns themselves have a lot to do with it, especially in my area because they are so limited.

Two factors for me RHS, throttle hand (doesn't seem too much of an issue) and exhaust. A couple rides ago I leaned it over a little too far on the RHS and she started tripodding on me, I could feel the front get lighter and push a little. I had to be a degree from low siding. The scrape on my body work was very significant (melted "burrs") and I'm pretty sure my sight glass touched again . This happened in a fairly tricky right hander that has bad pavement on the entry.

I used to scrape the bodywork on my blackbird, but hasn't touched down on th zx, footpeg always hits and that's far as I went

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You guys are f****ing CRAZY!!

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... says the guy with slicks for street tires!

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Did have BOTH slip with cold tires today. Think it was front then back. Very low speed going into a 90 degree corner pretty hard. Air temp was warm, I figured it was safe. 1000 miles might be all their optimum life is good for. ..or else it was just a slippery patch on the pavement. Stuck well after warmed up as much as I can do on the street.

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4000 miles might be incredible milage for some of you but it's about half what I normally get. Lowest I ever got on the 14 was about 6000 miles. It's cooked in the middle. I think I'm starting to see the compound lifting away from the carcass. Not peeling yet but about to. LOTS of WOT straight line runs but I got about as much use of the edges as I could earlier in the season.

* Last updated by: Rook on 5/19/2017 @ 8:21 PM *

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Front even has a flat middle. Definitely will change both and really am considering the Diablo Pros a second time around.....but I know I will be doing more tuning runs next summer with more hp.

Might go Shinko slicks to be practical. IDK. Would be worthwhile to have a set of high mileage tires on the OEM rims and race tires on he Carros....but I don't have that kind of jing laying around.

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Had to try a race tire myself - this one is a 195/70 so it will definitely change handling. Got it for the cold weather. Do not know the exact weight, but feels as light as a feather. It is slightly used though, with the wear on one side only.

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Cool--that looks like a rain tire. 195/70!!! I want to see a pic of how close it fits to the swing arm. look back at my pic of the 200/55 on p 2. It's very close.

* Last updated by: Rook on 10/10/2016 @ 11:20 AM *

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Wow, that is a small gap. So if my rim width is 6.25" (like yours) then I need to add 15mm?? At this point, my wheel is pushed all the way back, so maybe it will be ok? Thanks for pointing that out. A little off topic, knowing you like weight reduction, did you consider going to a 520 chain. There are a few pounds to be shaved off in that conversion. In my third season with the 520 and so far so good.

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Y'all may already know this, but what the heck: If tire manufacturers all followed tire size conventions very precisely, a 200/55 tire would be 110mm high (55% of 200mm), meaning the height from the top of rim to the top of the tire. And a 195/70 would be 136.5mm (70% of 195mm) ... so 26.5mm higher = 1.04" larger radius ... so a 195/70 would come 1.04" closer to the swing arm than a 200/55.

So, if there's not enough room to move the wheel back an inch, it may not fit ... depending on how close it is now.

Longer chain will prob be needed ... or smaller rear sprocket.

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Good info, extrap. that should give you some idea, Nova. For the life of me, I can never get what the tire aspect means straight. I just know the bigger the numbers, the bigger the tire.

If tire manufacturers all followed tire size conventions very precisely, a 200/55 tire would be 110mm high (55% of 200mm), meaning the height from the top of rim to the top of the tire

That's so easy. why can't I remember that? Same reason I can't remember what oil viscosity numbers mean, I guess.

At this point, my wheel is pushed all the way back, so maybe it will be ok?

maybe....just looked at a pic of mmy axle at the third mark. If there's another inch to push the axle to the back of the slots, there isn't any more than that. I think it's going to be close..and I mean CLOSE. remember somebody brought up on this thread that the tire can expand radially from centrifugal force at high speed allowing it to rub the swing arm. I did find some soft rubber residue at the front of the swing arm with this last tire. Don't know if that was hot rubber getting slung off or if it was rubbing. I would think I would have seen the paint rub off if it was the latter.

This might be an excuse to get an extended swing arm. You could use that on that beast.

did you consider going to a 520 chain. There are a few pounds to be shaved off in that conversion. In my third season with the 520 and so far so good.

I was scared off by what I had read about the possibility of breaking a chain. If you're doing it.....well you got me thinking again. I might make it through another season with these sprockets but they are getting worn. The chain never stretches a bit. I can't remember the last time I adjusted it.

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Thanks for the info guys. Rook, I'm sure you will research the chain thoroughly including the rotating mass. I've read that a Gixxer 1000 max force on a chain is 2500lbs. Strongest 520 is around 9000lbs. When I installed my 520, there was caution taken in the beginning. You guys push your machines much harder than me but the thrill of turbo spooling up gets me every time. It does not let up, just pulls harder.

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by the look of that tire, its never gotten up to proper temp, its as smooth as a babys ass!!

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Now it is. It hasn't been over 70 degrees here in a month.

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