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New Tire and Rain

D

DanLong

Mini Bike
I had my bike in for it's 15k checkup yesterday, and bought a new rear PR3 (my dealer gave it to me for $175 and it was in stock so no wait). The one I had still had some life left, but I'm doing a 1200 mile run next week and didn't want to chance it running out of tread halfway thru the trip. I got 8800 out of this tire and it might have had another 1000 left. The wear bars were just starting to show.

The weather has been spotty here, pop up tstorms, etc. I rode my wifes VStar down to the shop about 20 miles away to drop it off for it's service and picked mine up. She sends me a text- it's pouring up here. I check the radar on my phone, sure enough, there's a nice red spot moving thru. I put my rain gear on and head home. I was maybe 8 miles out when it hit me. The nice thing about back roads farm country is you can see the rain long before you feel it, and I knew it was coming. It was one of those downpours where you can't see the line on the road and the cars have their wipers on as fast as possible.

My main worry was a brand new tire that had maybe 10 miles on it, on the wet roads. I took it easy, maintained a steady speed, and really had no problems at all. Hit a couple spots with a few inches of water on the road where things don't drain right, but those were at intersections and I was going slow.

All in all it wasn't that bad, more worrysome than anything else. I'll get that new shoe scrubbed in over the next couple days.
 
I had a front and rear PR3 put on a week ago and got caught in a storm and the tires were great. I think having a front PR3 really helps move the water out of the way of the rear tire. I also noticed in dry conditions that that I seem to scrape the pegs in corners I didn't used to. I'm wondering if  the tires feel that good that I'm going a bit faster and just don't realize it.
 
On the way back from Arkansas (National) I got caught in a torrential thunderstorm, the water was coming down so fast and thick you could hardly see the road, and tractor-trailers were giving up and pulling to the side of the road.

It lasted for 3 hours, and my PR3s performed incredibly well. At one point I had to slow down pretty fast, and had K-ACT in linked mode, and ABS kicked in for a second, and the PR3s just stayed stable and predictable and never once did they cause me trouble.

Of course, I have to take some credit for that, in 45+ years of riding, I've ridden in a lot of rain, on a lot of bikes that were unpredictable on dry pavement, much less wet pavement.
 
Yeah, I like them too, this is my 2nd rear PR3. My front is still surprisingly intact, considering the stock front tire was worn out before the rear. I'd never experienced that on a bike before.
 
The last few sets of tires I've mounted did not exhibit the slick feeling that new tires have in the past. I read that the tire
manufactures are using different mold release compounds in the manufacturing process to improve break in traction.
Just some low speed, steep lean "S" turns are all they need to scrub them in.
 
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