Pirelli Stradas

After pootling around in the wet the last few weeks on some slightly dodgy rubber I finally got around to replacing the rubber on the bike. After 10,600km the rear was fairly well worn through the centre of the tyre but still had a bit of tread at the sides. The front was not as bad and could probably have gone a bit longer but as it's still winter I decided not to push things and change the pair.

The pictures below were actually taken at 8-9,000km so they were actually a lot more worn than pictured. They do however show how they wore and how the bike works the tyres.


So what do I think of them? Well, I initially didn't like the way that the front end felt - just a little vague and not quite what I'm used to with say a Metzler on a Bandit. Different bikes, different tyres so I guess that's one explanation. The one thing that has impressed is the front tyre wear. On the OEM Bridgestone i only got 6,500km and the tyre was toast. I also thought that with the relatively high weight of the Connie that the front might wear a bit quicker than normal - a pleasant surprise here.

The rear has been just fine and I reckon on something like the Connie with heaps of power & torque 10,000+km is not too bad at all. Also, as you can see I've been off the edge of the tyre (both sides actually) and it didn't cause any issues - I didn't even notice a rear-end slide which I did experience on the Bandits when pushing things a bit. The bike's weight might actually help here...

As for wet-weather ability, well as I mentioned above there's hardly been a dry ride lately and they've hung in there with no issues. Perhaps not as confidence inspiring as Metzlers on the Bandit but once again - different bikes too. At least the bike has stayed upright!

So what's on the bike now? A fresh set of Stradas...