Tires: Motorcycle Tires, road star warrior, dunlop 200

Question
I own: a 2005 Yamaha Road Star Warrior.
Stock Rear Tire: Dunlop 200/50/r17, made for this bike. I would like to use a tire with more sidewall: Dunlop 200/55/17

Only It's made "Specifically" for Harley Davidson"

Both bikes use cast aluminum Wheels
Both rear rims are the same size - 17" Dia
Both bikes Weigh about 700lbs (The Harley weighs more than mine)
Both are "cruiser" type street bikes
Both use (1) shock in the rear
Biggest Difference between them? The one I'm on is designed to lean wayyyy over - sporting, yes, but on a 700LB cruiser style bike this has limits. I have way more suspension and tire than I can possible use. After scrapping the pegs and my boot, thats it for me leaning over, and there is still about a 1/4 to a half inch untouched rubber on both sides of my tire.
The Harley is more "Cruiser", not so much lean angle. Most Harley bikes I've seen are rather flat in the middle of the tire, as the owners cannot or will not lean it too far over (Very little lean angle, anyway)

So, I'm sure it will PHYSICALLY fit on the rim and bike, but? Am I missing something? are the Bead designs the same? Maybe the difference is in the "hardness" of the tires? A harder tire may well screw me up. I can re-calibrate my speedometer, no worries there.

I have asked Dunlop 3 times, no response. I just want to use a thicker tire. It just looks wayyyy better - less like a rubber band around a ring, and more like a real tire on a rim.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike Latham
mlatham@semenza.net

Answer
Mike,

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with motorcycle tires, but maybe I can help fill in some of the gaps.

I don't think the bead designs are different.  That would create all kinds of other problems.

I would be very careful in putting a tire made specifically for a Harley on anything else.  It just might be that this tire needs to be paired with the front tire made specifically for a Harley.  Sort of like what is done for Porsches.  This has everything to do with how the tires interact with the vehicle handling.  Obviously this would be important for a motorcycle, even more so than with a car.

I think it might be best to try a different approach.  I also suspect you may have identified why the tires are different and incompatible.