pilot road 2 review

[dReWpY]

this is completly ripped from a certain forum, but has good information

Well I finally toasted the rear of my first set of Pilot Road 2's that I have run on the VFR and I have nothing but positive feedback to give.
First off I ride hard, fast twisties 99% of the time at the higher end of the PACE scale. Having run through at least 10 sets of Pilot Powers I've developed a pretty good feel of what a tire should and shouldn't do and the PP has been my Standard for several years now. No other tire provided better grip(wet & dry), confidence, quicker turn and wear then the Pilot Power, at least until now.
I avg. 2200 miles on a PP rear and after going through 25 rears I just had to continue my search for the holy grail (grip and wear). I have tried the original Pilot Road ( HATE them!!!), Dunlop Qualifier(so so),Dunlop 204/205's(semi suck), BS 020's(ok), BS 010's (decent),Diablo Corsa( great tire 1500 miles), Corsa III's (nice, short wear), Diablo Strada ( my favorite ST tire),but I only got 2500 miles out of it and after about 50% worn I would get an occasional slip from the rear. Just wasn't worth the loss in confidence for a few hundred more miles so I stayed with PP's as I couldn't find a better overall tire for the buck!
In comes the Pilot Road 2's, I picked up a set shipped for $300 and mounted them up.
First impression: Wow, doesn't fall into turns like a PP. I love a tire that falls into a turn and no tire did it better then the PP. No surprise here as just about every tire will be slower to turn in than the PP, but after 20,000 miles of quick PP turn in it took a little time to adjust fully.
The tires were mounted just before this years T-Mac and had a few hundred miles on the before our moderate Paced ride over and they felt very stable, smooth and planted.
It was actually Fridays Ripper ride with the fast boyz that I put the road 2's through their paces and i left nothing on the table, these things Grip extremely well and NEVER even gave a hint of loosing grip. It took almost half the day to adjust to the slower steering are years on Powers, but when I adjusted, look out.
I had Total confidence pushing these tires to levels at or above what any other tire has seen on my bike! The only thing I noticed was that these tires seem to more around a little on tar snakes that I never noticed on PP's. Other then that I could Not tell a grip disadvantage compared to the PP's whatsoever!
Also got several chances to test their Wet grip as I like to go very fast in the rain too and these tires did not disappoint, as go as any tire I've run in the wet!
OK mileage, as I mentioned I avg. 2200 miles from a rear PP and this tire now has 3550 miles on it and still felt very good. I have never got more than 3000 miles from a rear tire before and that was the dreaded P. Road.


That is an 60% gain in mileage for me, now that was not my normal riding the entire time as I did several hundred miles of two up and several hundred more in the rain. So I can remove 20% of the miles and still have a 40% improvement in mileage over the PP.
To me it's a no brianer, The Road 2 will be my rear tire from now on, even at a 20% cost premium over the PP these new Road 2's still provide an exceptional value.
I have no complaints about the front Road 2, but in an effort to regain some of the quicker steering I like so much my next set will be a Power front and a Road 2 rear. I'll report on those results as I wear them out next. Here's the front.


So my review, on the new Pilot Road 2's as a good ripper tire, there as close to the Holy Grail as I've ever experienced on a street tire. try them!

BR

[OneSickPsycho]

I really wish I would have been able to push mine...

[Mr Lefty]

I've been wondering about these for a while... never heard a bad thing about them... apparently they're the soft compound of the powers on the side... and the hard(er) compound of the Road in the center.

sounds like a perfect tire to me...

[dReWpY]

my goal is a 2ct front with road2 rear

i want that quick turn in with the front and good wear of the rear

[Mr Lefty]

so... exactly what the guy was saying at the end?

[dReWpY]

yeah, but i want te 2ct, not just the pp

esp with such a heavy bike i need all the side bite i can get in the front

[Mr Lefty]

ahh didn't realize they still made just regular PP's... thought they went completely 2ct in both powers and roads

[t-homo]

I am going for diablo stradas once my tires wear out or it is time for indy, whichever comes first. Most likely wearing out.

[OneSickPsycho]

I saw an ad in this month's MotorCyclist for some Bridgestones that looked interesting....

[jtemple]

Pilot Road 2's are what's going on my bike next.

Originally Posted by OneSickPsycho

I saw an ad in this month's MotorCyclist for some Bridgestones that looked interesting....

Are you talking about those new multi-compound tires? I thought I read somewhere that you could actually feel the transition from one layer to the next. I didn't think that was a good thing...