High Millage Tire, Please Help

[DSR12004]

This summer I am going on a cross country trip on my sport bike. I came up with a list of tires that are supposed to be good for sport touring and long distance, I need some input on which tire would be better, which I could get the most millage out of?please give me your input / thoughts ?

Avon- Storm
Storm ST

Dunlop- Road Smart MT
D616 Hybrid Sport
Elite 3

Metzeler- Roadtec Z6 Interact
Roadtec Z6

Michelin- Pilot Road 2
Pilot Road

Pirelli- Angel ST E.M.S

Bridgestone- BT023

[marc11]

Hard to say without knowing the type of bike and your riding style.  I get 8 to 10k out of a rear z6 on my Versys commuting.  I hear the Pilot Road2 are really good with mileage on some of the heavy bikes, but A LOT has to do with how heavy you are on the throttle, temps, road surface and so on.  I would say most any tire below, if you ride reasonable will get you 6k on a rear.

[greench440]

Try the Roadsmart.  The FJR is known to punish rear tires and I've managed to get 8k out of a Roadsmart on the FJR.  For comparison, a set of D220s barely lasted 4k and a set of BT021s were shagged after 6k.

[FiremanBob]

I have had great results from the Avon Storm and hear consistently good comments about the Pilot Road2. I sure wouldn't make low cost my priority on tire shopping.

[propeller]

Not knowing which bike model you ride, I get around 8 000 miles out of a rear PR2 on a Concours 14 riding two-up.

[MuddDawg]

I have 10k on my PR2s.  The rear has maybe 1k left, front probably a couple k.  I tend not to punish tires.  I have gotten 10k out Stradas on My Bandit 1200 as well.

I think the Angels are closer to a sport tire than a touring, so they would be in between somewhere.

[Mac]

On my st1300 I regularly get 12000 miles from the rear using metzler 550 rear and z6 front combo

[Baz]

The Michelin Pilot Road II's have been the best wearing tire I have ever had on the FJR. (A must to keep them properly inflated).

[bassjones]

I've been really pleased with the Roadsmarts I put on my VFR this Spring.  Just be aware that they will take a little extra time before they get broke in and offer really positive grip while cornering.  Once broken in, they grip at about 90% of a pure sport tire, but get much better wear over the long run.  It took about 250-300 miles before I was super comfortable cornering.  Before that the rear tire would get a little loose when cornering too hard, but now I can throw it into corners without worrying about it at all.  I'm at 2000 miles on them as of now and am VERY pleased.  We'll see what kind of mileage I get out of them and I'm considering trying the PR2s next year just for comparison, but that's not due to disappointment with these at all.

[GoneRacin]

Try the Roadsmart.  The FJR is known to punish rear tires and I've managed to get 8k out of a Roadsmart on the FJR.  For comparison, a set of D220s barely lasted 4k and a set of BT021s were shagged after 6k.

Best wear I have found on my FJR was the shinko Ravens. I know alor of people here look down thier nises at them, But the handled pretty well adn I had over 8k miles when I took them off to install them on another bike. they still had ALOT of usable tread left. I will buy another set of them when these bridgestones wear out.

[jfusaro]

Fred Flintstone cement all road 2's.  Constant pressure, no warming up the tires and guarantee unlimited mileage.   Michelin PR2's are on the Sprint now and I abuse them pretty good at times and plan on getting about 5/6k out of them.  If I toured and inflated them properly I would get at least 8/9k I would think

[hig4s]

Dunlop E 3s will definitely last a long time, not sure how well they will work on your bike. They are designed for really heavy full dress touring bikes.

[tigertom1965]

We need to know what bike you have and how you ride it. Do you have a CBR1000rr or a ninja 650R. What do you consider a sport bike? Do you beat on your bike every chance you get or do you baby it, do you ride at insane speeds or like grandma, do you ride only in the twisties or are you in Florida where there aren't any,  do you ride in any weather or only in the sunshine, etc... Give us a clue what bike, where you are from and where will this trip go, what tires are you replacing and what don't you like about them or what do you like about them. Is this trip across Arizona or across NY only. You may want a tire that warms faster you may not. You may want this tire for this trip only and then replace it back to a sport tire when you get back to your home ground especially if you hate the tire on your bike. Go to a web forum for just your bike and ask them what works for a long trip as well. They may have first hand knowledge as well.
Some of these tires work really well with heavier bikes but lousy with a 600cc bike. I was told by someone that races 600cc bikes that Pirelli was the way to go.....of course he had a Pirelli sponsor but he also doesn't have a touring bike.  You said you have a sport bike though. some of these tires have multiple compounds which can wear funny if you are in the twisties a lot. I found that my old bikes had the u shaped tire profile which were more stable once you leaned over but fell into corners and the new tires on my R1200rt have a rounded profile and move all over the road more than I like. I have tried the Z6 Roadtec which came on the bike but hated that blown around feeling (May not have been the tires) so much I switched to Pilot Road 2 and they do the same thing but after 4500 miles are starting to get better as they are starting to flatten off in the center. They don't handle funny because of this but you can see them flattening in the center of the tread. I still have plenty of tread life left though. The Z6 tires don't have a tread wear indicator in the center of the tread and many people hate this.