QuestionI know this question gets asked alot, but Here it goes. I ride a 08 zx14 and have the Shinko rear tire and Parelli front, they work well but the shink flats out in the center. I commute daily and get aggresive in the hills and take long rides in AZ. I have a 200/50/17 on the rear and want to stay with that size. Now the question I have is which would be a better set of tires out of these for aggresive dry, mileage and good wet traction, Avon VP2 sport, Dunlop Q2, Metzeler M3 or Paarelli Diablo. I've had the Michellin Pilot pro on my 05 ZZR600, Great set but want something different for the ZX14 in 200 size?
AnswerYou might as well be asking me what color underpants you should wear. Everybody has a different opinion on tires, and they're all correct. It depends on what you like.
For that bike I'd personally run the Diablos or Pilot Road 2s. I have a friend who has Diablos on a ZZR12 and he's very happy with them. Good for commuting, good for sporting, good for longer trips.
You can extend the mileage on the rear by running slightly lower pressures. It flattens out the tire somewhat, spreading the wear out across more of the tire, so it doesn't wear so much right in the center. For example, on my VFR I'm runnning 36 front and 34 rear. Dropping the rear down from 42 to 34 increased my tire life by about 1500 miles.
Be very careful running low pressures in hot climates! My standard advice is to not deviate more than 10% from OEM, but I do, so obviously there are ways to fine tune it:
There is a full discussion of how to set optimal tire pressure in my latest book "Maximum Control." I recommend it. Or you can search back through my past answers here, there's probably a Q and A about tire pressure with the same information.
P
