Michelin Pilot Road 3s...I joined the club

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Got to test ride the RP3's this morning - oh man on corners they gave me a scare. They kinda drop in and unlike the stock tires it takes a wee bit of effort to get back up again. Weird. Will take a bit to get used to them. Not as flickable as the stock units because of the added input to get right again; but initial turn in effort is much smaller than the stock tires.

I found my self dropping into a much sharper turn than expected or wanted and a few times I just held on and let her track through otherwise I was trying to dial her back which was too much and had to drop her back in again - oiy! Have not had a tire do this before. Gonna be a learning curve with these.

The rear ride height is taller because of the rim being too narrow to really quite accommodate the 160. You could try to drop the suspension to the next softer setting but the stock shocks are pretty flaccid, I don't know what that would be like for your setup as far as stability.

You could also increase the preload on the front end and leave the shocks alone; this bike is really responsive to that, but then the overall ride height would be taller.

That's the issue with one tire being a width mismatch; it puts the contact patch farther off center when you lean the bike. Modern bikes are designed to accommodate this with the very wide tires used but still feel very different than the narrower tires on the CB1100 and take a different kind of technique and feel.

I just do not like mismatched sizes, and am glad that now after three years I can get the right sizes in a good tire.

As far as getting to the edge of any given tire, the only tire that can be "edged" is a stock 140/70, as the bike starts to scrape pegs well before a 150 or 160 can ever be touched near the edge. There really should be no concerns about that for the vast majority of riders.