Dustin
Moderator
After some deliberation, I decided to pull the trigger on a pair of Shinko 009 Raven sport-touring tires. These are Shinko's long-wearing model with wet weather in mind so they appealed to me in terms of the type of riding I do & the weather I have to ride in.
The other thing that appealed to me was the price. At $140 a set out-the-door, they were by far and away much cheaper than anything else I could find.
Normally I am very hesitant about cheap tires but I have heard very positive reviews from users & I do realize that Shinko is simply using Yokohama's old tooling & technology so I figured I'd take the risk. I honestly didn't know what to expect with these and I had no confidence that they would be good but I was willing to try for the sake of trying.
So at the moment they are installed on my SV650. There were no issues with install or balancing and they were pretty grippy straight from the get-go.
Comparing them to the previous tires (Bridgestone BT-016), they seem to have a very similar profile but because they are new, the front end felt 100lbs lighter compared to my old set which were squared off front & rear when I ditched them. I noticed that the treads are pretty deep and quite soft which would account for some of the feedback I was getting when comparing them to the stiffer BT-016s. I imagine this will go away once the tires wear down a bit and I already don't notice it anymore.
I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised; maybe even shocked. My short-term impression is very positive! They feel good! I have plenty of confidence on them after just a short time and they really do seem to have great grip levels for the street. Wet performance I'm not sure of just yet but I'm bound to know within the next week now that I've got some confidence.
I will say that I get the impression the outright grip of them is not at the same level of the BT-016 or any other hypersport tire. I guess we will see when I get some more time on them.
I will update after a few thousand miles!
The other thing that appealed to me was the price. At $140 a set out-the-door, they were by far and away much cheaper than anything else I could find.
Normally I am very hesitant about cheap tires but I have heard very positive reviews from users & I do realize that Shinko is simply using Yokohama's old tooling & technology so I figured I'd take the risk. I honestly didn't know what to expect with these and I had no confidence that they would be good but I was willing to try for the sake of trying.
So at the moment they are installed on my SV650. There were no issues with install or balancing and they were pretty grippy straight from the get-go.
Comparing them to the previous tires (Bridgestone BT-016), they seem to have a very similar profile but because they are new, the front end felt 100lbs lighter compared to my old set which were squared off front & rear when I ditched them. I noticed that the treads are pretty deep and quite soft which would account for some of the feedback I was getting when comparing them to the stiffer BT-016s. I imagine this will go away once the tires wear down a bit and I already don't notice it anymore.
I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised; maybe even shocked. My short-term impression is very positive! They feel good! I have plenty of confidence on them after just a short time and they really do seem to have great grip levels for the street. Wet performance I'm not sure of just yet but I'm bound to know within the next week now that I've got some confidence.
I will say that I get the impression the outright grip of them is not at the same level of the BT-016 or any other hypersport tire. I guess we will see when I get some more time on them.
I will update after a few thousand miles!
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