[AimCenterMass]

I ride a FZ6 and i was curious as to what you guys thought are good sport bike tires? I ride street only, I would like a tire that has a good life that gives pretty good grip. I am not sure if there is a best of both worlds. I currently have Pirelli diablos on my bike, i really have no idea how long they will last. If this up coming riding season is anything like last i will but 6k or more miles on my bike.

 

[yahmyxs]

When I was young(long long ago) I did a study of tire companies and who was best. Guess what! Pirelli was second to none.

Now today is different, there are new chinese manufacturers that are rewriting tire manufacture. IRC was pretty good like 3rd overall.

YOu know who was the worst? Michelin. Not funny, I really liked that stuffed puffed tire guy !!!!

 

[DachshundUberAlles]

Good life and good grip do not go together. For street use, the sport tour tires will give you more grip than your skill will ever be able to push them to. Pirelli Diablo Rosso II, Dunlop Roadsmart II, Bridgestone T30, Metzler Roadtech Z8, Michelin Pilot 4 will each serve well. Your milage will be entirely dependent upon your attentiveness to pressure checks, pavement quality of the roads you travel, and aggressiveness at which you operate
I won't give you the milage numbers I have seen with mine because they have no bearing on what you will get and besides, I take any high milage claims with skepticism. I've never been able to equal the (what I view) overly generous milage numbers I have seen claimed.
You're riding a (somewhat) sporting motorcycle, accept a higher tire budget as the price of ownership and just enjoy the ride.

 

[ZX6RPanda]

I've got a ZX6R and have gone through a few sets of tires so far. Ride semi-aggressively on street and also do a lot of miles per year. Mine came new with Bridgestone BT016. They lasted about 7000 miles. Replaced with BT016 pro and they lasted 10,000. Then got Pirelli Rosso II's and liked them better, but they only lasted 6,000. Now I have Rosso Corsas mounted and of course, much better grip but I only expect them to last about 3,000 miles. I ride less than before so I'm fine with getting stickier tires, but earlier on I would have stayed with the BT016 pro's because they were cheap, pretty grippy, and lasted a lot of miles.

 

[SemiFast]

Sport touring tires will last longer than sport tires.
Sport touring tires give less traction than sport tires.

The right tire for you depends entirely on your riding requirements.
Like:
Do you corner fast enough that you scuff the rear tire all the way to the edge? If so a sport tire is recommended for that type of riding. (Or even a race compound).
Or, do you have about an inch or so of tread that never sees pavement on each side of the rear tire. If so, a sport touring tire.

 

[Zebraranger]

Good life and good grip do not go together. For street use, the sport tour tires will give you more grip than your skill will ever be able to push them to. Pirelli Diablo Rosso II, Dunlop Roadsmart II, Bridgestone T30, Metzler Roadtech Z8, Michelin Pilot 4 will each serve well.

My thoughts exactly. Good grip equates to softer rubber compound, wears out more quickly. Most sport touring tires use a combination of softer/harder compounds. A medium softer compound towards the edges of the tire (good traction for corning) and a harder compound towards the center of the tire (longer life where the majority of the time the tire meets the road). I've been using sport touring tire for the last 10 years because they seem to best suit my riding style. Different riding styles and different bike styles will yield different tire life. My bike has traction control and ABS linked braking system, so its helpful to the tire life. Proper tire inflation is also a key factor to tire life. I like going to the smoky mountains for a week or two every year and when I'm there I'm there to ride. I ride those curvy mountain roads pretty hard almost every day that I'm there, and the tires have always performed nicely. When I'm home in my Tampa Bay urban environment which is most of the time, I ride like everyone else, alert, cautious and safely, so I get pretty good tire life out of the sport touring tires.

 

[Rebeldog1]

I have Continental ContiRoad Attack 2s on two bikes a Harley XR1200 and KTM 990SMT. They are sport touring tires that scuff in quickly and warm up quicker than other tires with pretty good traction( I'm not a road racer) for both bikes which are probably heavier than your bike, downside is they are a little more expensive. One thing I like is they don't have different compounds in the center and sidewalls, they are single compound that use chord tightness or something to get better mileage in the center of the tread.