New tyre choice??

Hello all,

Been commuting on the Wing for a few thousand miles now and require some advice please as i am after some new tyres.

Iam thinking of the Bridgestone hoop as i have heard good reports.

Anybody had any experience with these?

They are fitted as standard on new models.

I have had two sets, (rears), and no adverse effects. Good grip, wet and dry.

Nothing bad to say about them really.

My 2011 came with the Hoops fitted, I've done 4700mls so far and I've no complaints, they also look as if they will last reasonably well .

Heidenau K66,Check them out.Great wet weather!

JamieB wrote:

Iam thinking of the Bridgestone hoop as i have heard good reports.

Anybody had any experience with these?

I had two Bridgestone Hoops front tires, both tires ended up having a raised offset diamond pattern on each side of the center groove long before the tire wore out.

I will not be using Bridgestone Hoops for the front.

honda_silver wrote:

JamieB wrote:

Iam thinking of the Bridgestone hoop as i have heard good reports.

Anybody had any experience with these?

I had two Bridgestone Hoops front tires, both tires ended up having a raised offset diamond pattern on each side of the center groove long before the tire wore out.

I will not be using Bridgestone Hoops for the front.

Same experience as honda_silver. His description of the front Hoop's condition matches what I observed before having both tires replaced yesterday. You may want to browse the https://www.silverwing600.com/t3777-new-tires-for-my-swing thread, but there are other threads with discussion of tires and options that should prove helpful.

The Hoop is one of the tires Honda recommends/approves. They did their homework.

Although not real Bridegestone fan (based on rear tires coming apart on Helix and Reflex)---The Hoop perfomed/performs well on SilverWing. No slid out or skids for me with them in all weather. "Cupping" on front seems to happen with all brands of tires and has since a long long time, on all bikes. I am also having very good luck with Bridgestone OEM on my NT----so good replaced with OEM.

Having used somewhere near 400 tires (at least) in 56 year riding career, have learned bike maker usually knows most about which tire should go on his bike. Putting lipstick on pig, you still have pig-----that is no need to waste money on fancy/exotic tires.....as in end you still have scooter.

Based on my reading in Germany Heidenau makes wonderful winter tires for scooters.

john grinsel wrote:

The Hoop is one of the tires Honda recommends/approves. They did their homework.

Although not real Bridegestone fan (based on rear tires coming apart on Helix and Reflex)---The Hoop perfomed/performs well on SilverWing. No slid out or skids for me with them in all weather. "Cupping" on front seems to happen with all brands of tires and has since a long long time, on all bikes. I am also having very good luck with Bridgestone OEM on my NT----so good replaced with OEM.

Having used somewhere near 400 tires (at least) in 56 year riding career, have learned bike maker usually knows most about which tire should go on his bike. Putting lipstick on pig, you still have pig-----that is no need to waste money on fancy/exotic tires.....as in end you still have scooter.

Based on my reading in Germany Heidenau makes wonderful winter tires for scooters.

Not so sure I agree with any of that.

Cupping is a result of suspension more so than tires. Motorcycles, scooters and automobiles alike. The silverwing has a very poor suspension.

I would bet that Honda has a contract with Bridgestone as a supplier for the tires for their M/Cs (similar to Ford and Firestone). There will always be better performing tires than what comes standard on motorcycles, scooters, and automobiles alike. One case in point. 1984 I purchased a brand new first year VF500F (bike of the year). It came standard with Bridgestones. Those who wanted to wring that MC out, including myself, threw those BS tires away and put on Dunlop Sport Elites. BS tires on that bike were more of a performance hindrance than an optimum tire that Honda engineers felt were the pigs lips for their customer.

Fancy/exotic tires are not a waste of money to most two wheeled riders.

Donekyhater----how many tires have you gone thru in your riding career?

In the days of interchangeable wheels, you just put the cupped front on the rear and wore it smooth---Bikes I have owned with interchangeable wheels include HD,Vespa, BMW.

I don't know if anybody really knows about what causes cupping on bike fronts.

Also I don't think SilverWing has bad suspension----most people do not ride well enough to have suspension or tires be limiting factor. Remember it is scooter.

And then there is the question----does cupping cause any safety factor?

donkeyhater wrote:

Cupping is a result of suspension more so than tires. Motorcycles, scooters and automobiles alike. The silverwing has a very poor suspension.

While that may often be true, my experience indicates something else must have been going on. I replaced one set of Hoops with another in February of this year. The old Hoops' treads were evenly worn, front and rear, with a fair amount of remaining tread depth. The Silver Wing performed without problems. If not for the condition of the sidewalls (these tires were on the Silver Wing when I bought it), I would have continued using them. At the time, I had little reason to purchase anything but another set of Hoops.

The second set of Hoops resulted in front tire problems. I'm wondering if this may have been the result of an installation error such as improper balancing, or a faulty tire, or an incompetent rider , or some other problem. I check tire air pressure often and don't believe tire inflation was the problem. However, the same suspension resulted in one OK front Hoop and one not OK front Hoop. Since installing my Hoops in February, the front tire issue has appeared time after time in the threads of this site.

The most unfortunate part is that I may never know with 100% certainty why the problems occurred with the second front Hoop. Since the problem with front Hoops seems so prevalent among members of this site and rarely mentioned with other brands of tires, trying something other than the Honda supplied tire seemed appropriate. And Motorcycle Superstore had a fantastic sale on Diablos, which admittedly nudged my decision making process along.

john grinsel wrote:

Donekyhater----how many tires have you gone thru in your riding career?

In the days of interchangeable wheels, you just put the cupped front on the rear and wore it smooth---Bikes I have owned with interchangeable wheels include HD,Vespa, BMW.

I don't know if anybody really knows about what causes cupping on bike fronts.

Also I don't think SilverWing has bad suspension----most people do not ride well enough to have suspension or tires be limiting factor. Remember it is scooter.

And then there is the question----does cupping cause any safety factor?

4928 tires to date That dwarfs your 400 +/- now doesnt it? Many tires. I have not kept a running total. I tossed the original tires away at 2002 miles on my silverwing. They had no noticeable wear.

The choppy, porpoising(sp), suspension of the silverwing IS its limiting factor in my riding style. It lacks any rebound. It IS purely a scooter suspension. The worst suspension on any two-wheeled vehicle I have owned, including Ducati, Yamaha, many Hondas (sportbikes, dirtbikes and scooters), 2 Whizzers, and many many pre-war and postwar Schwinn bicycles. Yes, even the Schwinns' basic knee action fork was better than my 05 silverwings' full suspension. LOL.

In my career I have had jobs in tire shops as an alignment/suspension tech as well as a cycle shop from which I base my opinion.

For 8500 MSRP in 05 you would think that Honda would offer a quality adjustable suspension on a scooter capable of 100mph. And I dont consider rear preload for overweight old guys an adjustable suspension. LOL. IMHO the suspension is the only negative on the long laundry list of positive features of the silverwing.

I lurked at this site for many a moon before I joined and fully notice/recognize that there is a pecking order, if you will, in that noobs' opinion arent accepted as readily as the senior members whose opinions are taken as the final word. I am just offering my input to this forum. Besides who really wants/needs a forum that is basically about windshields/tires/topboxes/farkles for a Honda Silverwing?!?

I hope I havent hurt anybodys' feelings.

And NO, I will NEVER put an automobile tire on the Rear or Front of ANY two-wheeled transportation I own. EVER!!!

I put Diablos on my Wing and the front tire started to cup after about 10,000 mi.. It still handles fine and has a lot of mi. left on it. I went back to a "hoop" on the rear and when I need to replace the front I will put "hoops" on front and rear. I go out threw 2 rears to every one on the front.

I've seen a few ads for Heidenau tyres in the German scooter magazines I buy. Some tyre suppliers list the K66 as a winter tyre, and there's also K66 variants. As winter tyres usually have silica in the compound to improve cold weather grip, they wear more rapidly than summer tyres. The other Heindenau tyres to fit the Silver Wing wheels are the sportier K72, and they look more like the Bridgestone Hoops in appearance.

Bridgestone tyres were pretty rubbish riding round on Suzuki two-strokes in the 70's. Since then I've had them on a BMW K75 RT, Helix, Majesty, and a couple of Burgmans, with no problems. I usually average about 8500 miles out of any make of rear tyre before replacing it, whether it's a 250cc scooter or a 750cc tourer

My OEM tires were Hoops and I changed them out at 10,000 miles and had the Diablo's installed. I had 2 sets of the Diablo's and liked them better since they feel stickier in the turns and in wet weather. I have the Metzlers now and like them too. But will have to see how long they last. The Hoops and Diablo's all lasted 10,000 miles and I could have gone a couple of thousand miles more at most.

But I will continue with the Diablo's or Metzlers since they seem to grab the pavement better and seem smoother. But the Hoops are still good tires, in my experience. But for some reason they cost a bit more.

Interesting that nobody has mentioned the IRC tires, which are the other brand recommended by Honda and are OEM in some of the recent model years. I have them on my bike, and they work well for me. The rear has been replaced with another IRC after apparently hitting something and cutting a big hunk of rubber our of the tread (see prior post with pictures). It stayed inflated and got me home in spite of the damage. The front is still on at just shy of 16,000 miles, and looks like it will get to 20k withour problems. It is just beginning to show some wear 'ripples', as I would not call it cupping, but it is not perfectly smooth, either. I push them reasonably hard in the Arizona heat, and they hold the curves quite well. I cannot speak to their ability in the rain, as we have had very little of it here.

In the UK we do not have the sanme tyre choice you have in the States or Canada.

Also, the cupping seams to be a US/Canadian thing, I had never heard of the problem until I started using this Forum. (Waits to be corrected by my fellow UK riders.)

So whilst you may recommend tyres to your hearts pleasure - the fact is, we are limited to a select few in the UK unless the buyer wishes to spend an arm and leg on postage!!

Like Waspie, I've never heard of cupping either, I haven't read an article about it in any UK or US bike or scooter magazines, maybe a photo of a tyre with cupping would enlighten us. It could be that the road surface dressings used in the USA and Canada are a lot different the to the ones used in the UK and Europe, or that your road are straighter for far longer distances than ours are.

I had 'cupping' on a front tyre when I rode an ST1100 (younger and stronger then !!). I suspect that it's a combination of tyre pressure and suspension function but I don't know that muc, I haven't got enough miles on my Hoops to notice anything yet .

For 'muc' read 'much' !!!!!

honda_silver wrote:

I had two Bridgestone Hoops front tires, both tires ended up having a raised offset diamond pattern on each side of the center groove long before the tire wore out.

My guess is that the Bridgestone Hoops rasied diamond pattern is from heat.

Mildrew,

I suspect that the biggest difference is that we have miles and miles of interstate highways, long, (mostly) smooth, and relatively straight. I think that the high speed causes the cupping. Mine probably doesn't show it because I do not do a lot of interstate riding. From what I've read, it has something to do with the way the tires 'squirm' at higher speeds. The way they are constructed has an effect on this, which is why some are more prone to do it and others are not.

honda_silver wrote:

honda_silver wrote:

I had two Bridgestone Hoops front tires, both tires ended up having a raised offset diamond pattern on each side of the center groove long before the tire wore out.

My guess is that the Bridgestone Hoops rasied diamond pattern is from heat.

'Heat' that definitely rules out the UK! Warm at best!!

Not surprisingly there's lot's of stuff about tyre cupping when you go searching on the internet, since I've never experienced it on any bike or scooter I've owned, I don't see it as a problem for me.

Meldrew wrote:

since I've never experienced it on any bike or scooter I've owned, I don't see it as a problem for me.

Likewise!