Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmart III front (left) and rear (right) tires.
If you enjoy sport touring as much as we do, then you?re probably as demanding as we are when it comes to tires. We want sportbike levels of grip on twisty roads, long tread life to satisfy our appetite for racking up miles and confident, agile handling on roads both dry and wet. Luckily for all of us, as motorcycles get more and more powerful and are equipped with evermore sophisticated electronics, tire technology continues to evolve at a steady pace.
During development of the third generation of its Sportmax Roadsmart tires, Dunlop pursued two goals. First, it wanted to create a tire that delivers consistent performance over its lifespan. Many tires feel great when new but they may ?go off? after a few thousand miles, diminishing grip and sapping confidence. Dunlop?s competitive benchmark for the Roadsmart III was Michelin?s Pilot Road 4 GT. During blind, internal testing on a BMW R 1200 RT at Dunlop?s Huntsville Proving Grounds, on tires with 3,000 miles on them, Dunlop says its Roadsmart IIIs out-performed Pilot Road 4 GTs in terms of grip, cornering and compliance in dry and wet conditions. Second, Dunlop wanted the Roadsmart III to set new standards for mileage, achieved through a combination of new front and rear compounds and Dunlop?s Multi-Tread design, which binds a harder, long-lasting compound in the center to a softer, higher-grip compound on the shoulders. With as little as 5 degrees of lean a...