New Bridgestone BT-54 tires on the doorstep

[Rolls_imp]

My CB11 clicked over 9500 (glorious) miles during our recent epic 5 CB11 ride over San Jose's Mt. Hamilton. If you zoom in on any of the mountaintop photos, you'll notice my front tire (my bike was fitted with Bridgestones at the factory, not Dunlops) is showing signs of its mileage.

Here's one next to IndianRider's front tire for comparison:



Now, I'm as thrifty as the next guy, but I think its a foolish economy to try to wring every last mile out of a tire on a motorcycle, especially around here, where as Randy B rightly points out, you need go 75 mph to not get run over by rush hour commuters and if you want to be in the (arguably safer) HOV lane, you need to be rolling 85 or more.

So I took to the internet to research tires. I've read that the design team went to great lengths to select the tires for our bikes, and I've been happy with mine, so I was inclined to stick with the ones that brung me this far.

Careful scrutiny of my sidewalls identified my road-worn front Bridgestone as a Battlax BT-54 110/80R18M/C 58V, so I went a-googling for purchase options. As Flynrider noted, most of the first four pages of results are for UK or other overseas sellers. The lone exception I noticed was Chaparral Motorsports (Red Mist recently posted this, too). Price? $99 and $129 (F and R). I ordered them (a front and a back tire) Monday and they were on my doorstep on Wednesday.



If you zoom in, you can see the Bridgestone label even says CB11, so they should be about as close to exact replacements as I figure I'm gonna get.

[flynrider]

How was the wear on the back tire? About the same?

I agree that getting the last mile out of a tire is often false economy. In my early riding days (when I was broke) I used to ride 'em til they were good and bald. Eventually it occurred to me that every flat tire that left me stuck on the side of the road was on well worn tires. I started changing out the tires as soon as the wear bars started to show and never got stranded by a tire again. I get the occasional nail in the tread, but at worst it's a either a very slow leak, or nothing at all.

[Randy B]

I did my front right at 9000 miles as well and did my valve check at the same time. I'm still running on my original rear at 14,000 miles. Not sure how much more it's got in it, but I'm shooting for a 2 for one with it (18,000). We shall see.

And for that price I may just have to order me a couple of sets at the rate I'm burning through tires.

[Rolls_imp]

Flyinrider: Back tire still looks pretty good. I can see it lasting to 14,000 or more, but time will tell. I just ordered the rear to be ready.

When they're side by side and brand new you can really see the massive difference in tread depth...

[the Ferret]

Stretch bolts new and used..notice how the center gets narrow and the stretched bolt gets longer. Replace them if they look skinny or stretched at all. Clean the threads if reusing and use medium lock tite

[url=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/theferret111/media/stretchbolts1_zpse3d30e21.jpg.html]

[url=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/theferret111/media/stretchbolts2_zpsed29f15d.jpg.html]