For the last day or so, I've been breaking in a set of Pirelli Rosso Corsa III tyres on the FireBlade. Introduced at the end of last year, these tyres are set to replace the fantastic Corsa IIs, which personally, I really like and currently have fitted to the 1098s.
For the last year or so, and with a monster commute, I've been riding around on a set of Angel GT tyres, designed as a touring/long life tyre and have been really pleased with their performance, so was really interested to get some softer rubber on and see how they felt.
With a few hundred miles under their belt, I was able to test the tyres across a myriad of different conditions at a variety of speeds, on a selection of different road types and I'm really pleased with them. At one point I was riding along freshly soaked tarmac and the tyres performed brilliantly, with no serious performance issues. Yes, in the wet you can't really ride like in the dry, but I felt confident through the twists, turns and trees on the A272 between Billingshurst and Petworth to not really worry about the conditions and just think about where to put the front wheel.
As you can see, the tread pattern is similar to that of the Supercorsa, the sportiest tyre in the Pirelli range, but has additional treads to help disperse water from the edge of the tyre. As you would expect grip is very good across the whole tyre in the dry and I was able to run fairly quickly through some smooth sweeping corners. Feedback also seems good...now I'm not going to sit here and proclaim that its like being hard wired into the road surface, feeling every single nuance of the tarmac, but you do get a feeling of grip levels when pushing on. Without the ability of a back to back test like in Performance Bikes, this is very hard to quantify, but needless to say, they feel as nice as the Corsa IIs.
My biggest concern at this point is longevity, which is something that didn't really concern me about the Angel GTs. The Rosso Corsa II's seem to struggle a little bit, but that's the sacrifice for exceptional levels of grip when warm. For the next three weeks of so, I'm still having to do a fair amount of motorway/fast truck road mileage, which is concerning me a little. With a round trip of around 220 miles three times a week and no car, I'm worried that I'm going to destroy the centre of the tyre before really finding out what they can do. Yes, I can always buy another set, but it will annoy me if I have to replace them in 3000 miles time because they're down to the wear markers.
All in all, I like these tyres. They don't make riding any harder than it has to be and I'm looking forward to seeing what they are like on track when I head up to Silverstone to attend the California Superbike School in a few weeks.
For the last year or so, and with a monster commute, I've been riding around on a set of Angel GT tyres, designed as a touring/long life tyre and have been really pleased with their performance, so was really interested to get some softer rubber on and see how they felt.
With a few hundred miles under their belt, I was able to test the tyres across a myriad of different conditions at a variety of speeds, on a selection of different road types and I'm really pleased with them. At one point I was riding along freshly soaked tarmac and the tyres performed brilliantly, with no serious performance issues. Yes, in the wet you can't really ride like in the dry, but I felt confident through the twists, turns and trees on the A272 between Billingshurst and Petworth to not really worry about the conditions and just think about where to put the front wheel.
As you can see, the tread pattern is similar to that of the Supercorsa, the sportiest tyre in the Pirelli range, but has additional treads to help disperse water from the edge of the tyre. As you would expect grip is very good across the whole tyre in the dry and I was able to run fairly quickly through some smooth sweeping corners. Feedback also seems good...now I'm not going to sit here and proclaim that its like being hard wired into the road surface, feeling every single nuance of the tarmac, but you do get a feeling of grip levels when pushing on. Without the ability of a back to back test like in Performance Bikes, this is very hard to quantify, but needless to say, they feel as nice as the Corsa IIs.
My biggest concern at this point is longevity, which is something that didn't really concern me about the Angel GTs. The Rosso Corsa II's seem to struggle a little bit, but that's the sacrifice for exceptional levels of grip when warm. For the next three weeks of so, I'm still having to do a fair amount of motorway/fast truck road mileage, which is concerning me a little. With a round trip of around 220 miles three times a week and no car, I'm worried that I'm going to destroy the centre of the tyre before really finding out what they can do. Yes, I can always buy another set, but it will annoy me if I have to replace them in 3000 miles time because they're down to the wear markers.
All in all, I like these tyres. They don't make riding any harder than it has to be and I'm looking forward to seeing what they are like on track when I head up to Silverstone to attend the California Superbike School in a few weeks.
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