Dunlop Roadsmart tyres tested
Added on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Dunlop Roadsmart tyres tested
Insidebikes roving editor Alastair Walker clocked up just over 7000 miles on a pair of Dunlop Roadsmart tyres in 2009. Here’s what he thought;
Dunlop claim the Roadsmart is the best wet weather performing sports-touring tyre on the market, and there’s only one way to test that theory – ride through one of the wettest, most miserable summers ever known in Britain. That’s what I did in 2009, with the Roadsmart 17 inchers fitted to my old Triumph Sprint ST 955 in the Spring.
First really big trip, once 500 running-in miles were added, was over to Belgium for the Bikers Classics meeting. Mainly motorway and a mix of A roads near the Spa track. Unsurprisingly there was rain near Spa and on greasy motorway slip roads the Roadsmarts did the job – never a scary moment, even when following the well-worn grooves of a thousand Norbert Dentressangle trucks. Sadly, they didn’t let me loose around Spa, so the real test for cornering was another long distance jaunt to Spain and France.
The motorways and A roads that lead from Santander to Nice offer plenty of high speed corners and the Triumph was able to make good progress tagging along behind rich types in Porsches. The old Sprint ST isn’t as sporty a bike as the later 1050 model of course, but I was able to make `good progress’ as they say. Even in thundery showers of rain travelling back home past Clermont Ferrand, the bike could be leaned well over at decent speeds on the two-lane motorway as it arcs through the mountains.
Technically, Dunlop say there’s a silica additive which helps wet weather grip and the tyres also have a compound featuring a long wearing section in the centre. After 7200 miles the rear was down to the legal limt, and although there was life in the front, both were replaced this Spring – with another set of Roadsmarts. The Dunlop Roadsmarts come in 17 or 18 inch wheel sizes and cost between £210-£250 per pair, depending where you buy them.
In 35 years of biking I have tried Metzelers, Pirellis, Michelins, Avons and Dunlops on the variety of bikes I have owned. There are no really bad tyres anymore, at least not from the major brand names, but over the last ten years riding sports-touring machines like the Sprint, Tiger 900 and VFR800 Honda, I would rate these Roadsmarts amongst the best in terms of wear vs grip.
Wet weather riding is all about confidence and the Dunlops give me that seat-of-the-pants feedback, which makes all the difference when biking along slippy roads.
Some rival makes of tyre might be slightly stickier, but if like me, you cannot wait to escape the bumbling 48mph idiots on UK roads and blow the cobwebs away with a long trip across Europe, these Dunlops will go the distance. I chose the Sprint ST partly because it does 50mpg, so it’s nice to have tyres that last a decent mileage, by motorcycle standards, as well.
