Alternative Niken GT tires

[TennesseeSmith]

I came to this forum today looking for tire advice. It looks like the Pilot Road fronts will be what I order for my Niken GT. I replaced the rear with a Dunlop RoadSmart a year ago. I only got 6500 miles on the stock rear tire. The new rear is holding up much better. 

I've had the bike a couple weeks short of two years and I've only put 11,200 miles on it. My Hondas get most of the touring miles and the Niken gets mainly local roads. 

 

[maximNikenGT]

1 hour ago, TennesseeSmith said:

I came to this forum today looking for tire advice. It looks like the Pilot Road fronts will be what I order for my Niken GT. I replaced the rear with a Dunlop RoadSmart a year ago. I only got 6500 miles on the stock rear tire. The new rear is holding up much better. 

I've had the bike a couple weeks short of two years and I've only put 11,200 miles on it. My Hondas get most of the touring miles and the Niken gets mainly local roads. 

 

What ride mode and traction control settings do you typically ride at? Also are you normally with passenger on the back or solo? I'm in the process of assembling a matrix of responses to see if there's a pattern...

[TennesseeSmith]

I ride solo. I change the traction control settings depending on how I feel each day. 

I wore that back tire down to the cord in the middle without wearing down the outside edges. That seemed odd considering I ride in twisties every day. I managed to slide that original back tire quite a bit also. I think the original rear tire was way to soft up the middle and way too hard on the edges.

 

[pelayo]

I used a set of Pirellis diablo Rosso this hollydays and the result was amazing. They dont have the homologated speed or weigh Code in the front but It didn.t Mattered at all. The grip improve a lot and surprinsinly also the Endurance. It.s the first time a set of tyres survive my hollydays on any bike. The fronts are more rígid and i had to modify my settings. The rear grip is crazy as i.ve never had the Rev límiter enter so many times.

[biggo]

Hi 

I have recently replaced front tyres with Michelin Pilot Power 3,s 

Done about 1000kms so early days but used in both wet and dry conditions and very pleased. I got 11000kms from original tyre so be interesting to see how these go

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by biggo

[Ferrett847]

Over 3k miles on the pr4s and the fronts still look like new with no irregular ware patterns.The rear defiantly more ware but looks like it will do another 3k .

[Ferrett847]

Tyre change time again .The rear pr4gt did 6300 miles and the middle was shot. The fronts look like they will do another 3-4 k .On the rear I now have a Avon spirit st as I couldn't get another pr4 .The results so far are that it's a more comfortable tyre than the pr4 ,rolls lovely into corners ,no issues with grip wet or dry and price point is in the same area .If the info is correct the Avon could last longer .

[Ferrett847]

1000 miles update on the Avon Spirit st .This tyre is imho better than the pr4,a I've used before in all conditions .It defiantly has more edge grip with a lot less of that feeling of the tred moving .I tested the stopping distances in wet conditions and have no complaints .I've not had any loss of grip under high loads in the wet or dry either .

[maximNikenGT]

Was shopping for front tires just because supply chain issues for getting replacement Niken fronts have been very iffy. Found that chaparral in the USA www.chapmoto.com has the Pirelli Diablo Rossi 120/70-15 for $101.47 USD per tire. Two tires plus tax and free shipping $221.65 USD. 

Revzilla only had the OEM Bridgestone A41s at $143.11 each. Dennis Kirk only had one left at $118. 

I figured I'd at least get the front tires since those are harder to find (couldn't find Michelin PR4s for anything less than $165USD per tire). 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by maximNikenGT
Tried to correct photo

[Rob from Ottawa]

Hi, A thank you to Maxim for their enthusiastic postings everywhere about Nikens. I admire your research almost as much as your foglight setup. 

On the topic of tires, I haven't heard of anyone using this bike the way I do, as an all-road ADV. After riding the stock tires to Labrador and finding mud flat-out dangerous, I fitted the world's fattest Continental TKC80 to the rear and two Heidenau K66 winter tires to the front. The bike still fishtails on deceleration on gravel and the Conti greatly slows down the lovely steering the bike originally had, but I'm now able to follow my GS-Adventure-riding friends again, I'm getting better at sliding the rear on farm roads, and I still have had no trouble cornering hard on asphalt. It is also perfectly rideable in snow, if you're careful.

No, the Niken is not actually a very good adventure bike. With 3 tracks, something is always hitting something and salty slush is hard on the chain. But it has added two months of riding to the season here in Canada. Safe riding.

If you want to use the bike as I do, I recommend a rotopax jerrycan on a Givi tail rack, SW Motec handguards, engine guards and bash plate, and R&G sliders.

The stock pannier mounts and panniers are of course terrible so I'm using Givi Canyons jerryrigged on the stock mounts. One of the latter snapped when the bike sank through its gravel parking spot and pitched over one night and I can't find the stock replacement in Canada. But that has been the only serious downside to using this as a gravel bike so far. Unlike the completely normal behaviour of the bike on the street, light dirt riding is weird but it works.

Thanks for the posts. 

[maximNikenGT]

2 hours ago, Rob from Ottawa said:

Hi, A thank you to Maxim for their enthusiastic postings everywhere about Nikens. I admire your research almost as much as your foglight setup. 

On the topic of tires, I haven't heard of anyone using this bike the way I do, as an all-road ADV. After riding the stock tires to Labrador and finding mud flat-out dangerous, I fitted the world's fattest Continental TKC80 to the rear and two Heidenau K66 winter tires to the front. The bike still fishtails on deceleration on gravel and the Conti greatly slows down the lovely steering the bike originally had, but I'm now able to follow my GS-Adventure-riding friends again, I'm getting better at sliding the rear on farm roads, and I still have had no trouble cornering hard on asphalt. It is also perfectly rideable in snow, if you're careful.

No, the Niken is not actually a very good adventure bike. With 3 tracks, something is always hitting something and salty slush is hard on the chain. But it has added two months of riding to the season here in Canada. Safe riding.

If you want to use the bike as I do, I recommend a rotopax jerrycan on a Givi tail rack, SW Motec handguards, engine guards and bash plate, and R&G sliders.

The stock pannier mounts and panniers are of course terrible so I'm using Givi Canyons jerryrigged on the stock mounts. One of the latter snapped when the bike sank through its gravel parking spot and pitched over one night and I can't find the stock replacement in Canada. But that has been the only serious downside to using this as a gravel bike so far. Unlike the completely normal behaviour of the bike on the street, light dirt riding is weird but it works.

Thanks for the posts. 

Thanks for the appreciation. Yours is only the second setup I've heard of with a similar  tire configuration using super knobby tires on the rear with some very extreme weather front tires. If memory serves the other rider was mounting some snow tires that come closer to your off road setup and was out of Calgary, Alberta. 

I'm amazed you could even mount a rear tire that thick under the stock rear mud guard. Were any modifications needed to accommodate those tires?
 

Would also love to see how you were able to get the Givi saddlebags to work on your setup because I'm leaving heavily towards trying to custom fit a Givi V37 solution somehow. 

[Rob from Ottawa]

The TKC80 seems to fit just fine, though it's crazy wide. I did not attempt to mount them myself. There's no rubbing, even though it bottoms-out regularly on potholes (another reminder that this isn't really an ADV bike.) I had planned to ride the Niken to Tuktoyaktuk in a few weeks but it's too large for my friend to trailer to Whitehorse so I'll do the trip on my WR250R. 

Thr Givi Canyons are just what I want for capacity; only roll-top baggage carries awkward objects like tents. I'm definitely overloading the stock pannier racks, though. Who thought it was a good idea to make them plastic?! And my brilliant mounting solution consists of pipe straps. Well at least they're stronger than the racks. I would buy the Givi racks (especially now that one of my stock racks is broken) but they don't offer a vertical mounting surface for my ADV bags.

[maximNikenGT]

Incidentally, was on the Yamaha Niken owners forum where it was reported by a fellow owner with a contact in Yamaha parts supply out of Southeast USA who indicated that certain Niken parts (ex. replacement suspension gold or the black EU only forks for the Niken) are on backorder for close to two years because Japanese Covid export laws aided in choking off supply of some of the rarer parts. 

[maximNikenGT]

On 6/26/2022 at 10:15 PM, Rob from Ottawa said:

Hi, A thank you to Maxim for their enthusiastic postings everywhere about Nikens. I admire your research almost as much as your foglight setup. 

On the topic of tires, I haven't heard of anyone using this bike the way I do, as an all-road ADV. After riding the stock tires to Labrador and finding mud flat-out dangerous, I fitted the world's fattest Continental TKC80 to the rear and two Heidenau K66 winter tires to the front. The bike still fishtails on deceleration on gravel and the Conti greatly slows down the lovely steering the bike originally had, but I'm now able to follow my GS-Adventure-riding friends again, I'm getting better at sliding the rear on farm roads, and I still have had no trouble cornering hard on asphalt. It is also perfectly rideable in snow, if you're careful.

No, the Niken is not actually a very good adventure bike. With 3 tracks, something is always hitting something and salty slush is hard on the chain. But it has added two months of riding to the season here in Canada. Safe riding.

If you want to use the bike as I do, I recommend a rotopax jerrycan on a Givi tail rack, SW Motec handguards, engine guards and bash plate, and R&G sliders.

The stock pannier mounts and panniers are of course terrible so I'm using Givi Canyons jerryrigged on the stock mounts. One of the latter snapped when the bike sank through its gravel parking spot and pitched over one night and I can't find the stock replacement in Canada. But that has been the only serious downside to using this as a gravel bike so far. Unlike the completely normal behaviour of the bike on the street, light dirt riding is weird but it works.

Thanks for the posts. 

Incidentally it looks stupid fun to do donuts in the snow with your Niken setup. I already have a lot of fun and smiles riding the Niken normally but this would be ultimate hoonigan time for me.

[Ferrett847]

Just an update on the pilot road 4,s on the front .We are at 7500 miles and in typical Michelin fashion they have just started to go off  and ware  in a weird way .There's tred left but from experience once they start to deform they were quickly so 500 miles more and I think they will need to be changed .On a positive note that's good mileage for me so I can't complain .The problem now is getting hold of some new ones due to supply issues .