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Conti Go Tires - real experience

tpbyrum

New member
Conti Go tires have been a complete dissapointment. Poor ride and low mileage.

Last spring I needed tires for the 83R100RS and had the usual problems finding real experience. Most posts said "I just mounted a set of xxxx and they're great". It seemed like no one had more than 500 miles on anything. If someone asked about a tire they would get opinions on everything but THAT tire. Oh well, into the dark and just take a chance. I prefer the stock tire sizes so my options were limited and I decided to try a pair of the Continental Go tires. The bike had Metzler's on it when I bought it and they were scary! Probably too old and were near end of life. I ran a pair of Macadams too which ran very well but were gone in about 9000.

This is an 1983 R100RS, I'm 165lbs, always ride solo, about half the time with full camping gear, largely two lane country and mountain roads on the eastern seaboard, very little interstate travel, all weather conditions.

When the tires were brand new the front had 5mm tread depth and the rear had 6mm tread depth. These tires were a disappointment from the start. Handling was vague and they followed road defects, tar snakes and rain grooves and just squirmed on metal bridge decking and milled pavement. I ran various tire pressures from 32psi thru 36 psi trying to improve the ride and handling. No improvement. You know how some tires just feel "planted". These never did. I have disliked the ride and have been waiting for them to wear out. A friend of mine who has lots of airhead experience calls them "queasy". Yup, that's it. Un-loaded or fully loaded, wet or dry, hot or cold. Poor design and poor execution.

The good news is that they wore out quickly. With 4650 miles on them, the rear has only 2mm tread left on the center line and the front has about 3mm. They are both coming off. I have a pair of AM26s waiting. We'll see what they can do. I do expect the Conti's to serve well weighing down the traps on the hay bales.
 
yeah, I went through 4 of them, plus what I started with on the road last year. That's all the garages had when I pulled in on the road. I didn't mind the overall handling but the rear tires burned right down like an eraser, just under 8-10,000 miles if I remember correctly. Whatever, that's what they had to fit and I utilized it. It was alot of out west flat and straight riding.

I have a Dunlop on the rear now and can definitely tell a difference in handling and grip comparing to Conti.

Conti's Go, I found out from 'my' experience are affordable tires, and that's about it.
 
I find 8K to 10K, to be typical service life no matter what tire is run, and I've burned up dozens of tires. The only exception being the older style Dunlop 491 Elites. Unfortunately the are so long-wearing that they get stiff and squirrely way before the tread gets thin. I can not speak to the next generation Dunlops. I'm currently using Conti-tours. They are new enough that I can't comment on service life at this time. Also, on my early airheads I'm thinking that I will go with what ever rear tire I can find in 4.00 or 110/90.
 
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