General grabber after 6000 miles

Well, it's been a busy summer with about 3,500 more miles to go before snow flies. I thought I would take a chance to give a brief rundown on the grabber. Afterallit's become quite the sensation I started with that tire. Enough babble, what do I think about it?

So far it it still a winner, although not everything is perfect. IO'll start with all the pros to this tire and then discuss the few downsides.

PRO:
Straight line traction is incredible I can now pull the front tire if I pull back a tad. If I lean forward I get a nasty bark as the tire breaks loose. The main thing is that it takes work to break it loose as it grips great.

Leaned traction is good as well. I have been able to make it slip once, but I was trying to and it was hard to slip even leaned over

Ride is nice, softer by a tad than stock (40psi)

Milage is superior. I've never put more than 4,800 miles on a rear tire, some were BALD by 4,000. I now have 6,000 on this one and it barely even shows any wear.

Cool factor - I get a lot of comments and looks out there. Choose for yourself if this is good. Some times it can be a pain. The nice thing is all my fellow MSF RiderCoaches so far have been open to it and several have ridden it and were suprised at how well it performed.

Hooks good in the turn (sorta) I did lead a FastLane ride (CMA Sportbike thing) and was able to scrape hard parts in every turn. By hard parts I mean more than pegs. I have ground deep gouges in my right frame bracket that holds the right peg assembly as well as misc places on teh right frame. On the left side I have scraped the shift linkages, frame brackets and a couple of the high welds on the sides of the frame!

Cons:
Sometimes I have to try to cinvince people that I will not die. Sometimes I just walk off other times I try to reason, but weither way it gets old at times

The tire is heavier and it has made my bike a tad slower due to this effect. In my regular daily drag races with my best friend he now beats me more than he used to (1200 Sportster)

My main complaint is the feeling I get in rough turns. WY is not known for smooth roads and when leaned over and hitting a bump, or a washboard type surface this tire gets a tad unpredictable. Sometimes it will want to stand up other times it will want to wallow, and a couple of times when leaned real hard it felt like it was trying to roll on over to the sidewall or somthing. This only becomes an issue when I corner very hard on bad roads, but I do live in WY and I do ride hard so in reality this is at least once a day.

After many miles of highway cruising at high speeds the tread has become even flatter to the point I have wondered if the tire will need replaced long before it wear out due to the tread getting excessively flat. Time will tell and this is WY so we have many miles of straight between every curve




That's about it. I'm not going away from the darkside, still have many miles left in it. I'm still alive after 6000 miles and so it must work. I just thought I would report my findings after half a summer of riding.

Ride hard, pray harder,
George

I have about 10,000 on my toyo proxxes tpt4 so far this year. I have felt the same thing in the rough corners at times. I have played with my air pressures dropping it all the way down to 18 (back up at 35 now). While it does feel like it is rolling over at time, I have had buddies behind me on sport bikes when I am digging through some of these and they are amazed at the flex in the tire. One said it didn.t look at all like it was rolling but that it did flex and was eating the road up. I find too that when it tries to act wallowy on me that a twist of the throttle makes her dig in and eat it up. As far as the air pressure playing, I didn't see much difference with the handling getting down to 18, it was a little softer on the straights but didn't feel like it was coming off the rim or anything.

See you out there
Smokey

Thanks for the write up George....Thinking of switching to a 70 series in about next year or another 20,000 miles, which ever comes first...


Jerry

thanks for write up, the tire btw looks great and I am not sorry to put it on my bike too, love it so far.

Well, 8k miles and still going strong. Barely any visable tire wear and only the small quirks I mentioned above.

George

How's the flat spot problem coming along?

what flat spot?? And who is that on your bike??

gstanfield wrote:Well, 8k miles and still going strong. Barely any visable tire wear and only the small quirks I mentioned above.

George

Thanks for the update George....

Jerry

dino wrote:what flat spot?? And who is that on your bike??

Dont you mean why does justletmein ride her bike.......

Jerry

dino wrote:what flat spot?? And who is that on your bike??

That's my biker babe.

I guess "flat spot" isn't exactly the right wording, but in your original post you said the following and I was just wondering if you had any different impressions:

"After many miles of highway cruising at high speeds the tread has become even flatter to the point I have wondered if the tire will need replaced long before it wear out due to the tread getting excessively flat. Time will tell and this is WY so we have many miles of straight between every curve Sad"

jedishon wrote:

dino wrote:what flat spot?? And who is that on your bike??

Dont you mean why does justletmein ride her bike.......

Jerry

hahaha, funny story. She went with me to get the bike, obviously needed someone to drive the car back home, and we got a little better interest rate putting her on the note with me... When I got the bike home we noticed the dirty rat salesman thought it would be funny to put HER name on the paper plate!!!

Sorry, I was just joking with you....Had no idea....Looks like you made a good choice on both though....

Jerry

Uh oh, we don't have to apologize for jokes around here do we?

Hey I knew you were joking, glad to see a little cutting up around here cause some places are dry... Now that salesman that put her name on the paper plate to my bike so I'd have to ride around with it like that for a couple week, that's a different story!

The handling quirk is still there, but it's a small one and to be honest I'd say that the vast majority of riders will not ever feel it. When I say I ride hard, it is an understatement. I literally drag my frame parts at times when I lean over until the pegs are folded up and keep going. How many people have ground their heim joint on the shifter to the point it locked up and had to be reaplced? I have! In fact I am almost due for another one. I'll have to take a picture for those who are scrathing your heads

If you ride it like a big heavy cruiser you will have no issues, if you mistakenly thought a VTX was a sport bike then you will find it a little quirky as I do.

George

Thinking of going to a 205-70-15 car tire. Looking to purchase a rear wheel and rotor for a VTX1300R. Please let me know if you know where this may be found. Thanks