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Tires

marv-lou

New member
Looking at tires ( again). Currently have thr Michelin Road 4 GT. They have been very good. Have gotten the best &longest wear of any I’ve had. Been looking at the Road 5GT, thinking they may even be better. I saw an ad for the Road 5 & the 5GT. The ad stated that the GT was built specifically for the heavier bikes & mentioned the K 1600 GTL. I’ve, since ran across ads from suppliers that stated the 5GT is “NOT RECOMMENDED FOR BMW K 1600
GTL”. Has anyone else ran across this ?
Also My recommended tire size is 190 - 55 - 17. When I researched the tire I could only get a 50 profile to come up. That shouldn’t be in issue since I’m short anyway but it makes me wonder about the 1st question. Any ideas ?
 
Michelin pulled the K1600 PR5 GT fitment due to some mild interference with the swing arm. I recently went with the PR4 GTs for my 1600. The PR3 GT's I removed from the bike had about 13K on them and had more to go.... pulled them mainly due to age.

How many miles did you get out of your 4's?
 
Michelin pulled the K1600 PR5 GT fitment due to some mild interference with the swing arm. I recently went with the PR4 GTs for my 1600. The PR3 GT's I removed from the bike had about 13K on them and had more to go.... pulled them mainly due to age.

How many miles did you get out of your 4's?

I have about 8k on them now. They still look good, actually rear looks better than the front, decent amount of tread left before the wear bar. It came with Pirellis, only got 7 - 8 out of them & they were shot. ( was used to 20k on the Harley).
Planning a trip to NC in may, figured they may need changed after that.
So ur sayin stay w/ the 4 GT’s ?
 
I picked up a '12 RT that had new PR4 Gts on it and I got about 10K out of them... handled fine the whole way. That is my only experience with them. Based on that I chose them for the 1600GT but only have a few hundred miles on them so far. I don't expect the same mileage out of them due to the weight/power of the bike.

A lot of folks seems to like the Dunlop RS III... also Pirelli Angels. I doubt you could go wrong with any of them.
 
I picked up a '12 RT that had new PR4 Gts on it and I got about 10K out of them... handled fine the whole way. That is my only experience with them. Based on that I chose them for the 1600GT but only have a few hundred miles on them so far. I don't expect the same mileage out of them due to the weight/power of the bike.

A lot of folks seems to like the Dunlop RS III... also Pirelli Angels. I doubt you could go wrong with any of them.

After the Pirelli’s I had if I get 9-10 out of them I’ll be very happy. Every ad you see boast about how well their tire handles in the wet. I do run into rain but I don’t go looking for it. I wish someone would make a road tire that you could get 15-20 k out of. That’s the way I ride, not off road
 
I'd like to know how the PR3s I removed from the 1600 managed the miles they did. They were on the bike when I bought it.
 
I picked up a '12 RT that had new PR4 Gts on it and I got about 10K out of them... handled fine the whole way. That is my only experience with them. Based on that I chose them for the 1600GT but only have a few hundred miles on them so far. I don't expect the same mileage out of them due to the weight/power of the bike.

A lot of folks seems to like the Dunlop RS III... also Pirelli Angels. I doubt you could go wrong with any of them.

For what it's worth, my 16 RT came with the PR4's, got about 8,000 miles from them. Nearly always 2-up riding and I do a lot of tar-chip roads where I live. Switched to Continental RA III's, got about 10k miles out of them and put the Conti RA III GT's on next. I really like them. Seem less twitchy than the Michelin's, and great grip on wet roads. I think most of the top-tier MC tires are probably satisfactory these days. A matter of personal preference, I guess.
 
Nice to hear the recommendations for road tires. What do folks recommend for track days for an RTW? I will be attending my first ever track day this August on my first ever BMW motorcycle, so I'd like to show up properly prepared! I heard too many times in the Army, "Piss poor planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine!"

Thanks for the suggestions!



Ted
2018 R1200RT Mars Red
(with farkles)
 
Any modern sport-touring tire will do well enough for one or two track days. Dedicated track tires or sport tires for an RT will probably cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney, and would be useless for anything else. While it might be fun to take an RT to the track for a day, I wouldn't call it a "track toy" in need of special track tires...

YMMV
 
Ahh, the old tire conversation!
Folks who own the K16GT/GTL know that these bikes must have a HW tire because the weight and torque will destroy anything else.
I've personally tried Bridgestone Battleaxe BT20 (about 3500miles) which came with the bike, then I went to a few sets of PR4's which only got 4500 miles and then tried the Pirelli Angel GT A spec which were much better than PR4's and got close to 5500 miles. I then went to the Angel GT II A spec which seem to be even better than the originals. I've now had 3 sets of them on my bike and getting ready to go with another set OR try the Dunlop RS III's simply because a friend has them and gets good mileage from them and they are much cheaper than the Pirelli's.
 
Ahh, the old tire conversation!
Folks who own the K16GT/GTL know that these bikes must have a HW tire because the weight and torque will destroy anything else.
I've personally tried Bridgestone Battleaxe BT20 (about 3500miles) which came with the bike, then I went to a few sets of PR4's which only got 4500 miles and then tried the Pirelli Angel GT A spec which were much better than PR4's and got close to 5500 miles. I then went to the Angel GT II A spec which seem to be even better than the originals. I've now had 3 sets of them on my bike and getting ready to go with another set OR try the Dunlop RS III's simply because a friend has them and gets good mileage from them and they are much cheaper than the Pirelli's.

I’ve got 8000 on my PR4’s & still looking pretty good. Hoping for 10 + .
 
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