Tom Franken

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(Here's the original writeup.)

The DC trip gave me a chance to experience a little more of what the car tire will do to the bike.

First, the ride becomes much softer.  I have a Corbin seat which has less padding than the stock.  It is great for medium day rides but gets hard after six hours.  With the rear tire absorbing most of the little shocks, the seat was fine for the duration of the trip. 

Second, cornering is improved with a caveat.  In a long, hot sweeper, if the road has some waves, the tire will flex and can introduce some swaying.  This happens with a normal motorcycle tire but is a bit different with the car tire.  It is smoother, similar to a boat going over a wake at an angle.  The total variance in the lean angle was never more than maybe 5 degrees.  Keep in mind, in 3,900 miles it happened twice doing 45mph corners at 65-70.  It never taxed the bike's ability.  Some corners had waves and did not make the bike sway.  'Don't know exactly why - maybe I had a tighter grip on those ones.

Before some of you rant about how the tire can't hold up to the corners, hear me out.  If the corner has any roughness to the surface - cracks, broken-up surface, grooves, pot holes, etc - the car tire rolls over them without notice.  I hit some rough surface in a hot corner and didn't know it except the sound of the tire changed.  Rain grooves and metal bridges are now irrelevant.  

The bike comes out of corners faster.  It will straighten itself up but not quickly.  You have to steer the bike out of corners.  Flicking from one side to the other - such as changing lanes quickly - will demonstrate how the tire's flex assists in coming out of the corner.  I never had a problem "oversteering"; it simply "flicks" easier.

Third, it is rock-solid in rain.  We had sheets of rain coming down and the bike never wavered.  (Note: I've never actually had a bike act strange in rain like I've heard people talk about.  The only issue I've had was slick white lines but I didn't get a chance to "test" the tire in a curve over them!)  I switched lanes, zipped along, and generally drove like I always would through the worst of the downpours without incident.