I'd watched all the discussion on here when the T30s were originally released with some interest. I've had a love/hate relationship with Bridgestone since the early '90s, when their first radial tyres released into the wild were almost, and I'm not entirely sure it wasn't deliberate, actually called "Excrement". Bridgestone spelled it "Excedra", but you know how other cultures sometimes inadvertently use English in odd ways. I spent a couple of weeks swapping ends on my RC30 before the rear mercifully just gave up the ghost and went flat. By then Yokohama had released a range of radials and they were light years ahead of the Bridgestones in terms of gaining and keeping heat and actually gripping.
Since then I've had some very different experiences with Bridgestones. The factory combo on my Z750S was brilliant, but not obtainable once worn out and the BT021s I tried were nasty. The tread blocks moved around when changing direction rapidly, especially flip flopping from decent lean to decent lean and the front tyre made a humming noise when approaching the edge of the tread which was unnerving.
I was a bit surprised to see Maha re-gift his free T30s. A free tyre is a free tyre, but a couple of wet weather scares 2 up were off-putting. I spoke to him at length and he was totally convinced that they weren't for him. It wasn't until the first time I rode the Versys in the wet that I found out what he was talking about. A gentle right instituted a long front end slide followed by a gently fishtailing rear after gathering things together, then it all stopped abruptly when the coarse seal started again and normal service resumed.
Since then I've discovered that in the cold and wet they will simply just stop gripping the moment they hit shiny tarmac. Once you know it's going to happen you can adjust accordingly and be aware of the likely skating about without overreacting and doing something regrettable and you can plot a course that mostly misses the shiny bits. Even in the dry they give up all pretense of grip on tar snakes which is a bit of an arse in spots where they proliferate, such as passing under the Petone Over-bridge, an off-camber right-hand downhill corner when heading North that used to be an easy 100kph (100kph+ actually - tell no official-type people) corner but is now posted at 80kph+poo-in-your-underpants if you have T30Rs attached to your bike.
In the dry and on an easily judged and consistent surface they are fantastic. They steer well without being overly quick with no sensation of either dropping into a turn or pushing back as lean angle increases, both profiles seem to be well matched and braking produces consistent responses at all sorts of lever pressures. They're compliant over bumpy surfaces and they are wearing really well. The dual compound rear is prone to revealing its boundaries when put through a proper heat cycle, with the two different compounds being made obvious by them turning different shades of grey. Commute to work and it returns to a consistent colour across the radius of the tyre.
Getting the tyre pressure right for your riding and the combined weight of the bike and rider is vital, as get it wrong and the front and rear seem to fight each other and the superbly neutral steering becomes lardy. I've settled on 36 front and 38 rear, with rebound set toward the middle and preload maxxed out front and rear. The suspension became compliant and the tyres started working once I made that change. Bear in mind that the Versys has a 160/60 rear so my description of the neutral feel once suspension and pressures are right is probably aided by less effort being needed to steer a smaller rear tyre than the 190 and 200 section behemoths that seem to be standard nowadays (Get Orf My Lawn!).
They were brand new when I bought the bike, so I've gotten used to them as I've gotten used to the Versys. Adequate power, smaller tyres and more torque than one would expect is crammed into the bottom two thirds of the rev range so it's a completely different experience to the XJR, with its excessive weight, flat, monstrous torque "curve" and good handling only limited by a lack of ground clearance. I prefer the Versys to be honest, but I wouldn't buy Bridgestone T30Rs with my own money. I've a couple of months left to wear them out before it starts raining all the time so I can put some Michelin PR4s on it. I understand they deal with a broader range of road conditions. Or so you lot reckon anyway, except that Blackbird fella who reckons the PR3s are better and last longer.
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Originally Posted by James Deuce
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