Pirelli rain tires

About "sippons" ?

 

C'mon, Broome.

Jeff, you had me at "Gentlemen".

 

He's new around these parts...

 

In thinking about it, the “wets” (for the big bikes at least) look more like cut Slicks. They have more grooves than the DOTs, and they are bigger/deeper.

I know you know that, I’m just jogging my memory. It’s been a while since I used them.

 

Thanks gent, you guys answered all of my questions and then some. I always wondered why the 160 size looked different.

 

I'll play your games trebek. I'll take art is anal cheese for 400.

 

Ahhh I see. That makes perfect sense from a manufacturing perspective. Demand/sales is always one of the leading factors. All I know is they are amazing! That 160 is the first rain tire I've ever used in rain conditions and I was blown away by its grip! I now have it on my R3 which I have yet to find out if that was a good decision since it's on a 4" wheel. Not recommended, I know, but since I only had like 15 or so laps on it at a relative slow pace I didn't want to get rid of a perfectly good tire lol

 

We have a proper rain tire available in a 140 rear with the new tread pattern. Pinching the 160 on that rim won't give you ideal performance.

https://tracksidetires.com/product/diablo-rain/

 

I know, but I'll give it a shot and see if I end up on my head lol Once I wear them out a bit I'll get the proper size. What's the recommended size for the front on a 3" wheel? Normally it's a 110 for the race tires, but I see for rains the option is either a 100 or 120.

I see you guys go to pretty much all the east coast/mid-atlantic tracks for all the events I plan on going to so nice to see there will be Pirelli trackside support everywhere! I'm new to the area so every track will be new to me. I was really contemplating buying a No-mar tire changer but after witnessing my friend struggle to mount my supercorsas on with it, I decided I'll just pay trackside tire people to do it lol

 

We've used the 100 fronts with good success in the rain on those bikes.

 

Good. That's the answer I was hoping to get, since they're like $50 cheaper than the 120 lol

 

Just a thought, the last time was out on rains I could not get the grip level I was used to (albeit new track in the rain but other people seemed to have WAY more grip). I came to the conclusion, whether correct or not I don't know, that I wasn't getting enough heat in the tires. So relating this to your situation, I would imagine getting heat in a 160 with an R3 is going to be very challenging. I guess if your just wanting to use it to save cash throw a warmer on it before hand? Actually I may use the warm function on my warmers next time I have to get wet.

 

Rain tires don't work that way.

More often than not, the problem with grip in regards to rain tires used in the appropriate conditions is that the tires are under-inflated; the tires flex too much and the sipes close and they can't disperse water effectively. What pressures were you running?

 

Can't remember. They were Michelins and it was whatever pressure I was told to set them at. Think it was somewhere about 32psi? Either way I was told if they had gained more then 1 or 2 psi off track to drop them. I remember coming in and the tire was cold, like felt almost zero heat in it. This was at grattan and the only other place I ran rains was at the old nelson ledges where we hammered on them. Think we were within 10 seconds of our dry times almost, I didn't win any of those races but it was a blast.

 

I'm far from being able to put heat into any rain tires in the wet lol...the only 2 times I ran in the rain were on these ones when I had them on a CBR500, and the other time was on a ZX6R at Road America on a 6 year old set of used Pirelli rains. Both times the tires were cold as the ground lol On the 500 I was running about 8-10 seconds slower than my dry times which I thought was pretty good (goes to show how slow my dry times were probably lol). On the ZX6R I think I was running like 20 seconds slower than in the dry, but it's Road America...big track. Plus the right side of the rear was toasted from the previous race where I ran on the rains even though the track was only semi-wet and was drying pretty quick (bad judgement on my part) so I barely had any grip on the right side. At that event, Jason Farrell was running the same lap times on his ZX6R in the rain as I was in the dry lol...so maybe he was putting some heat into them, but I'm far from that level. I rely on the softness of the rubber. Either way it was good enough to get me a 4th place which was my best finish in a race.

 

We ran the intermediates at PIRC (BeaveRun at the time) in morning practice, with ideal conditions for them. No one was close to us. Of course it dried up for the races and we had to go racing on DOTs.