Sports tyres v Sports Touring-Ride guide (August)

Hello peeps.

Did anyone read the August guide to tyres in Ride magazine? It basically says that for road use and occasional track day use that sports touring tyres are perfect. It also has a test with a fast rider and a normal rider for several laps of a 4km test track with sports tyres on, and NEITHER set of tyres get up to the optimum temperature for sports tyres to work properly (they say 60 degrees). It says that with hard track use sports touring tyres will just get to the temperature limit and that would be just right as that's when they'd be at their stickiest.

I'd like comments on this as I need a first new tyre on my first bike ('03 SV650S) and am perplexed because most people seem to favour sports tyres like the BT014 over sports touring like BT020. I do the occasional track day and will ride in the wet. Even the bloke at my local tyre shop, which incidentally isn't rated highly on here, said to go for the sports.

Cheers, one man without loads of money to burn on the latest, prettiest rubber.

[mattSV]

Originally Posted by teriyakimonkey

Hello peeps.

Did anyone read the August guide to tyres in Ride magazine? It basically says that for road use and occasional track day use that sports touring tyres are perfect. It also has a test with a fast rider and a normal rider for several laps of a 4km test track with sports tyres on, and NEITHER set of tyres get up to the optimum temperature for sports tyres to work properly (they say 60 degrees). It says that with hard track use sports touring tyres will just get to the temperature limit and that would be just right as that's when they'd be at their stickiest.

I'd like comments on this as I need a first new tyre on my first bike ('03 SV650S) and am perplexed because most people seem to favour sports tyres like the BT014 over sports touring like BT020. I do the occasional track day and will ride in the wet. Even the bloke at my local tyre shop, which incidentally isn't rated highly on here, said to go for the sports.

Cheers, one man without loads of money to burn on the latest, prettiest rubber.

The 020 was a great tyre in its day, however tyre technology has moved on since then.

I think you will find that most people on here go for sports touring tyres such as the Metzeler Z6 - I have found these more than good enough for my SV1000, which tends to get ridden 'enthusiastically'