It's that time again

Yep, the Grand Challenge is just over a week away and it's time to start getting ready. The first step I needed to take was to replace the rubber on the Connie. The first set of Michelin PR2's I've tried have really proven to be the tyre for the Connie.

My first impressions of the tyres were that they transformed the front end of the bike, offering great feel and making it easier to access the great handling of the bike. Over the life of the bike they have offered great performance with no grip issues except in situations when any bike tyre is going to have trouble - road debris, very extreme weather etc.

Not only that they have worn very evenly - the harder compound in the rear tyre preventing the usual situation where the centre wears well before the edges of the tyre. The eventually did wear thinner than the sides but it just took a lot longer and I got a lot better tyre life. The fronts also wore nice and evenly although at the end of their life the profile was definitely affected - something really noticeable riding home on the new tyres.

Front

Rear

So in the end the tyres came off with around 11,800km on them - more mileage than I have got out of a set of tyres for a long time (read: riding smaller, lighter, lower powered bikes). The previous best mileage on the Connie was my first set of Pirelli Stradas that went to 10,300km. A significant difference! What's more I think I could have got at least another 500km out of them - although in the pictures they actually look better than in the flesh.

So naturally I'm very impressed and yes the new tyres are also PR2's and nothing is likely to change there in a hurry. Sold!

More preparations for the GC this weekend...