Tires: Miles/$

[duhg]

I got curious about a miles/dollar comparison of tires I've tried recently.  I don't think this matters much, because I won't ride on tires I don't like regardless of their ranking in this comparison, but I had to see the data for myself.  I keep a maintenance spreadsheet for each bike and took my data from that and from online tire prices.  Of course your mileage and pricing will vary. 

My favorite tires over the past decade have been Michelin Pilot Roads.  On the FJ the Road 5 GT tires scored 45 miles/dollar front and 23 rear.  Dunlop Roadsmart 3 got scores of 67 front and 38 rear.  That's a big difference, but I did not like how the Dunlops felt.  My last 2 Michelin rear tires were outliers in my experience - one went lopsided and one was worn out at 3500 miles, so I have a new set of Conti Road Attack 3 GT on now.

Looking at the maintenance log for the Tiger Explorer I just bought, I see that the Shinko 705 on the front has lasted over 15k miles and rates a 129 miles/dollar score!  The rear gets a 69.  I've ridden them for 500 miles and they're not as bad as I imagined, but I'm switching to Anakee Adventures soon. 

[roadrash83]

  The Shinko 705 have served me well on my KLR605 and will probably age out before I wear them out. The rear tire has a little over 5000mi on them almost all pavement unfortunately, looks like I could get 10,000mi on it easy. It's amazing how rear tires last when your bike puts out 35hp. Michelin pilot roads are my tire of choice for all my road bikes, even run them on my HD XR1200. 

[Paladins31]

I also ran the Shinko 705's on my 2013 KLR650 and had great results with performance and mileage.  As for the FJ-09, it's always been the Dunlop RoadSmart 2's, but more recently the RoadSmart 3's.  6,000 miles out of a set.

[duhg]

After riding them on the Triumph, I've decided that the 705 is the next tire that is going on my DR650.