Mixing Tire Brands?

Hey all,

Its time to get BOTH (oh yes, I said both) bikes ready for summer.
Unfortunately, the 900's front tire is pretty well dry rotted, so I
need to replace it. Similarly, the Connie's front is damn near down to
the nylon. I'm running a continental on the rear of the 900, and a
pirelli on the front. Same boat, the Connie has Dunlop Roadsmarts on
both, but the rear is in good shape. I'm tempted to keep the perelli
type on the front of the 900, and putting a Michelin Road Smart 2 on
the front of the Connie for better wear. I know its a rule of thumb to
not mix tires, but for general touring, does anybody have much
experience with mixing brands of tires, or bad luck in doing so? I
know they're supposed to work together, but I'm not dragging knees
here. Any thoughts welcome, thanks!


PS- From what I can tell, speed and handling ratings are identical
between front and rear in both scenarios, just better wear rating on
the Road Smart's for the Connie.

I wouldnt see nothing wrong running difrrent brands as long as its the right size tire. i see people doing it all the time. i just changed my wore out tires on my bike and i had a kenda on the front and bridgestone on the back, didnt have any problems

toolman5774 wrote: Hey all,

I know its a rule of thumb to
not mix tires, but for general touring, does anybody have much
experience with mixing brands of tires

In the 32 years I have owned my bike, about 95% of the time it had different brands on front to rear. If you drive in a sane manner, you will be fine.

i had a bios on the front and a radial on the back during my front and rear end conversions. ran fine for a season. didnt notice any problems at all.

I have never used mixed tires on my KZ, but as you mention, tires are designed to work together. So for best performance use a matched set. However, since your stated riding stye doesn't appear to require maximum performance from the tires, you may not notice any problems as long as both tires are in good condition and the correct size. Nonetheless, I would still recommend sticking with a matched set. Ed

I would run same tires front and rear as a set but usually the stuff you read and hear about not mixing tires usually pertains to not mixing a bias and radial tire combo because of their construction differences.

What kind of wheels do you have on your bikes toolman? (stock?) (spokes?)

From all the info I've sourced you can mix bias & radials. Make sure to run a bias ply on the front and a radial on the rear. There is more lateral movement with the sidewall on the radial tire therefor the rear is the more practical location. There are 3 different motorcycle manufactures using this combo on new bikes directly from the factory. Yet I'm not even sure why? could be a money thing (not sure).

The main fear that lots of riders have doing the combo is that when radials first came out the tire companies had very little testing done in this area. So to be safe they recommended not to combine them, but this is old news and many riders have not been updated in this area.

Cheers, Doug

Do not mix bias-ply and radial construction tires on these bikes. Any OEM mixed combos mentioned above surely have SIGNIFICANTLY more R&D time put into the tire choice and the bike manufacturer likely collaborated with the tire manufacturer to get the desired result.

When you're leaned over, going around a curve at speed, a bias ply tire will react differently to bumps than a radial belt tire. This is especially true when you start mixing and matching different manufactures and different tire sizes.

I've experienced basically a 2:1 ratio when replacing tires- I have to replace the rear twice for every front tire I replace.

I use Bridgestone Spitfires and have been extremely pleased with them. They're a dual-compound tire, harder rubber in the center for mileage and stickier rubber on sides for traction when cornering. Gone through quite a few of them in the last few years. The tires that were originally mounted on the bike when I first bought it were Cheng-Shins [hahaha!!!], yes the rear wore out before the front, so I replaced the rear with a Spitfire and as soon as the front was worn out, on went a Spitfire too.

Thanks for the input everyone! I think I'm going to try the Michelin road Smart on my connie since is has dual compounds and keep the dunlop on the rear at least until it wears out. I'll probably match the set on the Z1 though, mainly out of shallowness