Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Tire recco

Curious if any of you guys have a tire recommendation for rear, my main concern is traction. Longevity is nice, ride quality less so, mainly interested in traction, cornering, when wet, so forth. I currently have an Avon Venom, which has always seemed to lock up a smidge faster than I would like.

Michelin Commander II has been the best rear tire I've had for traction and longevity

+1 on the Commander II...

Damn. I was afraid of that. I hate Michelin. Safe to assume no trouble finding 170/80–15?

I like the IRC Wild Flare and I'm not paying fo0r the name. Most tires any more are the same quality. With high end tires you are paying for the name only. I ran a Tire shop for a while and know this to be true. That being said tires are different compounds depending what you want it to do, that is what you should be looking at.

Wild flares are half the life of commanders, if that.

and half the price

Anything except Metzler 888's.

I ran a couple IRC Wildflare rear tires, the Commander II is superior to them in nearly every category. Tread life and traction in wet or dry is far better with the Michelin. Price wise, you can get the IRC for maybe 75 bucks if you look hard enough, you can get the Michelin for maybe 125 if you shop around. How much does it cost you to mount a tire? Because you'll be doing it more often with the IRC. It's not a bad tire at all, I liked it a lot but once I put the Commander II on I realized how much better of a tire the Michelin is.

I have run the Commander too and I have to disagree, in my opinion they perfprm about the same but the IRC is a little stickier thus the faster wear because of the softer compound. Not gonna get into a what tire is better argument, having managed a tire shop you would be suprised what different brand tires actually come out of the same factory and I used to laught at people arguing what tire was better when it was the same tire with a different name on it.

If tires where fuel tanks, the irc would be a peanut

It's funny how different people have different results with the same tire. The original Lazertech that came with my SM on the front went about 25,000 miles and wore evenly and when I changed it it still had tread just thin. Others had terrible luck with those.

I'm running Metzler rear tires on both bikes. Have run the Commanders on both, but somehow wound up with Metzler again.

On my bobbed '09, it's a little light in the back, and the rear skates on take-off on wet road. Even starting in 2nd.

Other than that, only complaint is the V-Twin designation on the sidewall, which really pisses me off.

170/80-15 is common. All the VTX's ran that size as far as I know, and who knows what else.

As for the front, the Avon Storm radial (110/80R18) has been a major improvement. It handles better. It even helped the suspension, or "feel" anyway.

The America runs a fatter front tire on the newer models, and a taller (110/90-18) on the older models, and I have never seen a radial tire in either size.

I run an Avon Cobra on the back and an Avon Roadrider on the front.

This is the recommended combination from Avon.

Love them.

I have been running the Commander II both front and back. I am needing to replace the rear again. Only got 16K miles out of it.