I'm not sure about the whining noise but I'm curious if it's related to the belt and not tires. By the way, since you've had several sets of tires on the bike, what have been your experiences with your replacement tires and how many miles do you have on the bike? Thanks for any input.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, still need to compare it to another belt drive. I’ve basically just been setting the tension on what I would call a pretty tight chain 7.5/10 on the over tightened chain scale?
I know there’s a right way to do it.
Someone please let me know.
Yeah the stock trail wings lasted about 8,000 miles. The first 4K was 90% city riding in Bay Area traffic under like 55mph. So they lasted a long time. Perfectly fine tire. Never felt like I really needed more street grip. Nice in town. Quite. Fine on dry dirt/gravel. The tread is to tight for mud and gets packed into a slick almost instantly.
From there I had a set of Dunlop d404’s that I got on a deal from a local shop. Turned out the deal was a Harley front tire on the back. And yeah... it basically disintegrated in less than 1,000 miles. So the shop graciously replaced them with a set of Bridgestone Battlax’s. I road those from Northern California to Michigan. Down to LA then across Nevada, Colorado, Utah, all the interesting places, and then Kansas... 6,500m. I literally got to where I was going, passed out and then the next morning the back tire was flat and wouldn’t even hold air. They were dead. Completely dead, like 2/3rd’s of the whole tire was just cupped out. I had originally planned on getting new rubber in Indianapolis. But didn’t happen.
I just put a set of Shinko 805/804’s on. Their barely broken in yet. I probably have less than 400 miles on them at this point.
So You’d think going from the Bridgestone to the Shinko would be like a crazy difference but it’s really not. You can definitely tell it’s a knobbie on the road, But for a knobbie it gets great street grip at speed. Hard acceleration out of a tight slow turn will break it loose. The battleax’s were basically impossible to over power.
But for a 800pound machine that only makes 40hp with 30° of lean what do you really need? I can out ride the bike way faster than any of these tires. The 805s are crazy soft too. I’ve already excepted that the lifespan on these is probably less than 4000miles. I’d think you could probably get 5 just around town not abusing them.
Its worth it to me. I do a lot of exploring on this bike. Lots of logging roads, fire roads, cutting thru yards, etc. I will say that they do not like the rain! Wet is ok. But raining, standing water stuff it’s not having it. You have to be super gentle with the roll on in the rain. That being said.. it is also the only tire I’ve really been able to do rolling burn outs on with the bike. Lol
I think I’m about half way thru 15,000miles so far. I swear I’ve never seen a drop of oil disappear out of this bike. 10-40half blend. Every 3k or so. Wash the air filter occasionally. I’ve never synced the throttle bodies... I really need too I’m curious. I checked the valves around 13k. And they were all still in spec. I did change one exuhust valve just to be the same as the other. But they were both still in spec tolerances. I really enjoy this bike. It’s been good to me. I just need more ground clearance/lean angle and 100 pounds lighter. This was supposed to be my commuter but is growing on me. Haha
