Just to be clear, you're both the tire vendor I need - and - the tire vendor I deserve. Wanted to clear up any misconceptions or Batman references.
Just passing some time while I'm eating lunch. And, to be clear, it's not the lunch I wanted, but it's the lunch I deserve.
That would fall solidly into the "wanted" category. "Deserve" looks a lot more like grilled chicken and vegetables.
So say I've lightened the rear setup by 2ish pounds (gsxr wheel + lightened rotor).. how would you feel about putting on the bigger tire which somewhat offsets that lesser weight?
Aside from one or two racers I can think off of the top of my head, in the regions I service, the 160 rear on the stock SV rim is dominant. Now that Pirelli has a new SBK SC1 option for the rear, I really don't see the need for a bigger tire. Previously, people were switching out to the bigger rim sizes to have more choices in regards to compounds and so on, but we've got SC1 and SC2 options in both SBK and DOT rubber. I also know that the SV lap records that were set in recent years on Pirellis on the east coast were all done on the 160 rears. Zayat, Mazz and Ben Smith all used SC1 DOTs. The new SC1 SBK rear seems to have a bit more grip as per rider feedback, but that tire wasn't available until this season. We tested a lot of different rears with Mazz on the SV (3 years ago? 4 maybe?) and the OEM rim with the 160 on it was what he was fastest on. A lot of the testing we did on the SVs with different racers showed that the stock forks with proper carts yielded the best handling motorcycle, but people still put GSXR front ends on them. In the end, I'm just telling you what I've seen and what I've learned over the years. But you're the one racing the motorcycle. If you want a big tire, use a big tire.
All I can say is that I've seen a Dunlop chart where the 190/55 track tires where listed as eligible for both 5.5"&6" rims but optimal for 5.5" rims. Metricdevilmoto already addressed it in a previous post
Truth be told, in addition to the bike working great with them, I've been reluctant to change because it makes it easier when I order a pallet of tires. I run the same tires on everything. But when I get a new R6, we will start with the 180/60 from the getgo.
If I had a dollar for every track day guy on a SV that told me he needed a GSXR front end to be able to run a respectable Advanced group pace, well, I could buy a lot of GSXR front end swap parts. Or a lot of cold pizza.
Does it make any difference if your ride height changes due to shock adjustments or if you just change your tire size? Real question.
Swingarm angle among other things. The profile of the tire also dictates how the motorcycle behaves at lean angle.
when you ride dirt bikes, for about 3-4 hours , almost every day.. ya sometimes miss these wonderful interactions
Like Mike said above, going with a taller rear tire will have the back end of the bike sitting up higher, but you'll actually lessen the swingarm angle slightly in the process, which is the opposite of what happens when you just lengthen the shock to increase ride height.....you steepen the swingarm angle. So technically when you run a taller rear tire, you would want to open up the shock length and/or raise the front of the bike up if you need to keep a particular swingarm angle to maintain squat/anti-squat characteristics (assuming you've got your chassis squared away in other areas).
