DUNLOP-RTS
New Member
Go to this link for more information: http://forums.superbikeschool.com/index.php?showtopic=2561&view=findpost&p=20782JBGB3;226713 wrote: Steve, (or anyone else with knowledge on the subject),
Hoping this isn't a dead thread, but to combine two of the above issues: running a light bike and trying to get heat into the tires. Is it possible to be unable to maintain the needed heat in a pair of tires (Q2s) regardless of your pace, because your bike is light? Whether warmers are used or not? I don't want to waste the money on warmers if I can't keep the heat in there!
Catch-22: "to keep the heat in you need to push harder" but "in order to push hard you have to keep heat in your tires"!!!
Does Dunlop (my preferred brand) make tires, as other manufacturers do for the supermotarders, aimed at the requirements of light weight bikes for high levels of grip? Put another way: TZ-250 grip on a Q2 budget.
Any help would be appreciated.
You are placing too much emphasis on the running temperature of the tire. If your lap times are 15 seconds off of the top riders times, you will not have the same heat in the tire as he does. but at the same time your lap time does not require the same grip level. so its a sliding scale of needed grip - heat - available grip.
As you go faster the need for grip increases, along with the heat and available grip. You must build up from cold tire to hot tire (unless you use warmers).
Smaller bikes will never produce the same temps as larger heavier, higher HP bikes.
Be more concerned with how the tire feels and the grip it is providing, YOUR feeling of this. Be less concerned (or not concerned at all) with what a temperature gauge says. YOUR feel is the most important thing, not the temp gauge.
If you rode and everything felt fine, you had a great ride, the bike felt good, the tires felt good, then all is fine. But if your friend checked your tire temp after that ride and told you it was to cold, then you would go and make changes and be all concerned and worried. That gauge just blew your weekend of riding for no valid reason. My advice is to leave the temp gauge at home. Its not a tool that is useful at a track day. It puts riders in doubt and makes things uncertain, Leave it at home.
Supermoto: We will have some new supermoto product available this year. Lower cost.