02-08-2014, 02:22 PM
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:
![[Image: c3f85d7c1d6f2b7b0ae38a7e58003744.jpg]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/201402/c3f85d7c1d6f2b7b0ae38a7e58003744.jpg)
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.
![[Image: 76a819173bd129e7cea6639e7d41b997.jpg]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/201402/76a819173bd129e7cea6639e7d41b997.jpg)
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.
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.