Wobbly tyres (Avon Storms)

[MacD]

Find out what you can about it first, Geoff.
My (limited) understanding is that the Viper is the replacement for the AV49-SP, and after my last experience, I turned down the offer of a Viper front in favour of matched Storms. It was a great tyre when new (as long as I kept the pressure at 38 or higher), but wore badly.

Well I was reading this thread thinking that I was pleased that I have run Vipers rather than Storms/Azaros on the front of my RF900 and now the Bandit as I've had 3 Viper fronts now and none of them have had any moderate or high speed shimmy issues. At 8000km the Viper on the F900 was not noticeably triangulated (certainly not compared to the Dunlop 208 I had on there before). I changed the Viper on the Bandit at 12000km and it had only just started to show an appreciable amount of triangulation. I had just started to notice a degree of very slow speed (walking pace) squirm coming from the front, although it disappeared at any speed much above that. I usually run the front at 36psi and it is reasonably obvious if the pressure drops much below that as the handling becomes a bit heavy.

[homer]

K, so I got a new set of Avon Storm STs put on today (120/70-Z17 front 180/55-Z17 rear). I was expecting great things, but I also knew from reading a review here that some people have experienced a sort of wobble or wiggly feeling on them at low speed.

Well, count me among them. It feels as if the tires are heavier on one side than the other. It causes the bike to feel as if it is wiggling as you're riding along, and the effect becomes more noticeable the slower you go. The bike also seems to drift to the left if I take my hands off the bars. I tried it on a couple of different roads to be sure this wasn't caused by the camber, and while I can't be certain, I don't think it was. The wobble and drift ain't major—I don't think it is likely to affect handling. But it's disconcerting; and the fact that I don't know it won't affect handling is worrisome.

Does anyone know what causes this? Evidently it's a common issue with these tires. I got the Storms because they've received very good reviews in terms of wet handling, as well as longevity; and they were relatively cheap. I was hoping I wouldn't encounter this problem. Now I'm kinda wishing I'd stuck with what I know and got some Pirelli Diablo Corsas instead.

What should I do, in your collective view? Take them back and have some new ones fitted? Ignore it? Is it possibly just a wheel balancing issue that is easily solved? I got it done at Road and Sport in Hamilton, and they test rode the bike before they gave it back to me. I'd have thought they would have picked up on this...

Im not a trac person ...but if it dont feel right it goes
simple
If you keep it on there you ll be wondering forever and its always in your mind

i found similar with the bull s*** mitchlin pilot road .Istill have one on the front but its going soon to ,im not even going to bother trying to wear it out

May i suggest a metzler road tec z6
thats a fucken tyre

[Blackbird]

Well I was reading this thread thinking that I was pleased that I have run Vipers rather than Storms/Azaros on the front of my RF900 and now the Bandit as I've had 3 Viper fronts now and none of them have had any moderate or high speed shimmy issues. At 8000km the Viper on the F900 was not noticeably triangulated (certainly not compared to the Dunlop 208 I had on there before). I changed the Viper on the Bandit at 12000km and it had only just started to show an appreciable amount of triangulation. I had just started to notice a degree of very slow speed (walking pace) squirm coming from the front, although it disappeared at any speed much above that. I usually run the front at 36psi and it is reasonably obvious if the pressure drops much below that as the handling becomes a bit heavy.

Just to be absolutely clear before I getonefitted, are we talking about the Viper Sport, Supersport or Xtreme? I'm guessing it's the first of the 3. 12000 km sounds incredibly good for a relatively soft compound. Can't see them lasting that long on the 'bird.

Cheers,

Geoff

[vifferman]

I had just started to notice a degree of very slow speed (walking pace) squirm coming from the front, although it disappeared at any speed much above that.

Hi, Mr MacD!
I don't think the SquirmyThing is anything other than just a quirk of the tyre (rather than a defect), maybe caused by the back-to-front tread pattern. Who knows?
But mine did it from new, and it was just a "Huh...that's weird!" thing as far as I'm concerned.

[MacD]

Viper Sports. I just checked my records and the distance between tyre changes on the Bandit was 11656km to be precise! The front tyre was beyond its best by that stage, maybe by 1000-1500km, but still functional. The low speed squirm was noticable when slowing to walking pace, say coming up to a red light. Looking at the tyre it appeared that the leading/trailing edge of each tyre block had worn at different rates (not unusual to see due to directional forces when braking) and that the diagonal nature of the tread pattern mean that the tyre was "walking" from tread block to tread block producing the slow speed squirm. However it was only noticeable when upright and disappeared at any appreciable speed (say 20km/h +).

The Bandit is much less front heavy than the RF900, and I often ride two-up so probably are not braking hard into corners a lot of the time. Even so I too was pretty impressed by the mileage, which included a tour to Invercargill and back with pillion and luggage. The rear Azaro was worn down just beyond the centre tread markers when I changed it.

I'll post a picture of a Viper Sport at 8000km on the RF900 later.

[MacD]

Hi, Mr MacD!
I don't think the SquirmyThing is anything other than just a quirk of the tyre (rather than a defect), maybe caused by the back-to-front tread pattern. Who knows?
But mine did it from new, and it was just a "Huh...that's weird!" thing as far as I'm concerned.

Hello to you too Sir

The difference for me was that I only noticed the SquirmyThing with the Viper Sport at the very end of the tyre life, not from new, and that's on 3 different tyres and 2 different bikes. The Storm front appears to have deeper/more pronounced tread blocks so maybe that contributes to the difference?

I still have the last DVD for you too! I'll be in touch about dropping it over sometime.

[Blackbird]

Viper Sports. I just checked my records and the distance between tyre changes on the Bandit was 11656km to be precise! The front tyre was beyond its best by that stage, maybe by 1000-1500km, but still functional. The low speed squirm was noticable when slowing to walking pace, say coming up to a red light. Looking at the tyre it appeared that the leading/trailing edge of each tyre block had worn at different rates (not unusual to see due to directional forces when braking) and that the diagonal nature of the tread pattern mean that the tyre was "walking" from tread block to tread block producing the slow speed squirm. However it was only noticeable when upright and disappeared at any appreciable speed (say 20km/h +).

The Bandit is much less front heavy than the RF900, and I often ride two-up so probably are not braking hard into corners a lot of the time. Even so I too was pretty impressed by the mileage, which included a tour to Invercargill and back with pillion and luggage. The rear Azaro was worn down just beyond the centre tread markers when I changed it.

I'll post a picture of a Viper Sport at 8000km on the RF900 later.

Thank you for that info, much appreciated and I'll report on how the Viper goes with the Blackbird. The Azaros were known for walking pace weave and it was caused by the large band of rain grooves going in one direction then in the opposite direction on the rear tyre. The early Azaros didn't have a sufficiently strong carcass construction for heavier fast bikes like the Hayabusa and Blackbird and that's why they introduced the Azaro-ST. The Storm was developed from the Azaro-ST.

Fascinating things, tyres!

Cheers,

Geoff

[vifferman]

Fascinating things, tyres!

Quite useful too!

What is fascinating is the difference the feel can make to your riding, solely by how it affects your confidence in the amount of available grip and your feeling of security. Most of this is in your head (LOL!) - I've always been very cautious in the wet, but with the Storms the phrase "they're even better in the wet" (wonder who said that....?) was stuck in my head, so I had the confidence to push them a bit and not tense up. So if I fall on my head, it's all your fault, Geoff!

[imdying]

Not related... but after I fitted the last set of tyres to my ZX6R it was so wobbly that it took me about 1-2km before I could even ride it in a straight line. Predominantly used it for commuting, so I had become so used to the squared off tyres that the vastly improved agility of the bike was quite disconcerting... right up till I got to the first set of decent corners... bliss

[BigB]

Hi All

First up I'd like to say a big up's to Kerry at Motohaus

Even though he didn't fit the front tyre he re balanced it at no cost to me

They had real problems balancing the front and it now has an extra 50g of lead on it, a 50/50 split.

As of yet I haven't taken the bike for a decent ride so I'll let you know how I get on. Kerry has said that if the issue is still there that they'll replace the tyre which is great service from him and Avon.

cheers

Brian