Video presentation of the 2022 Michelin Road 6 and Road 6 GT;

[p6x]

12 hours ago, LowRyter said:

Faith.  It does work both ways. 

OTOH, I was in Arkansas in June and no dealer in Russellville (Honda and Suzuki, two dealerships) would put a tire on my Ducati.  The Honda dealer would ONLY work on Hondas- they were backed up for months.  But the tire change would've taken, what 20 minutes? 

I think the big shop in Fayetteville would've done it and had me on my way.  I was heading home anyway and it was a good excuse to leave with riders I wasn't comfortable with.

A word for the wise when traveling. 

I remember you reporting this.

Maybe it is my safety culture, but if I had been a dealer, knowing that leaving your on the road with a worn out tire was not the best course of action, I would have made an exception. If only for keeping my peace of mind. Because if you had had an accident and it had turned out a worn out tire was the culprit, there is some kind of mental liability there.

I understand what you mean with riding solo. Riding in a group implies responsibility; some riders don't understand it. It is no longer individual driving and different set of rules apply. Else, there is no point. I did a lot of team road riding before, I am more into solitary rides now. Not that I don't appreciate tandems or more, but I like to stop to take impromptu photos whenever I see something I think can justify it; which is against the group safe ride procedures which have determined stops established ahead of time.

[p6x]

21 hours ago, PJPR01 said:

I haven't spent a lot of time trying to figure out the science, but I have two premises, one is that the rear tire temperature is almost always 10 degrees C hotter than the front ( I use my Steelmate TPMS to monitor both pressure and temperature), and I suppose carries more weight due to panniers and rider position.  I would imagine the temperature is driven off multiple factors (downstream of engine, exhaust?, weight), but I would think heat is a primary contributor.  Others who are more expert can chime in...perhaps there are other factors as well.

There may also be the UV factor implied. You know that UV rays affect the molecular structure of elastomers. This is why you always need to put your o'rings in opaque bags, so they don't catch the light, besides the 10 years shelf life.

We have a lot of sun here in this State. I have seen what that did to my joints on my cars, which have hardened precociously. There are different compounds to fight it. But nitrile is one of the cheapest, and one of the most prone to UV alterations. None of the tire manufacturers are going to tell us what recipe they use, but for sure hard light induces premature aging.

[p6x]

On 1/31/2022 at 6:31 PM, p6x said:

It is not as bad; I requested the tires on December 29th; Davey said he would tell me when he would be ready to install them.

He asked me to bring the bike on January 21th; I brought the bike on January 27th.

From the 29th until the 27th, it was hidden time since I kept riding.

I could have gone to another shop and gotten the tires installed in one day if it had been an emergency. I am just a faithful guy.

 

I got the call today....

My Le Mans is ready; March 10th, 2022 minus January 27th, 2022 = six weeks as told. Perfect timing!

[p6x]

I repossessed my Le Mans yesterday, and the Michelin Road 5s were a complete shocker to me....

As I was going to turn left on Park Ten boulevard, I thought I had a technical issue as the bike just dropped into the turn with the usual input. I stopped and had a visual check, everything seemed fine.

Doing a succession of left and rights to warm and scrub the tires on the I-10 feeder, I quickly realized the new tires were the culprits for that new handling.

It felt like I was on a different motorcycle. I no longer needed to firmly curb the bike into curves, it read my mind, and I just had to feather it, no matter how sharp the turn radius.

Mesmerizing and exhilarating!

I can't wait to go back to the 3 Twisted Sisters and Brothers to check it out.

The Michelin tires which were on the bike when I got it were of a different type (Pilot race 2). The front tire allegedly new according to the dealer who sold the bike to me.

I am just taken aback by the complete feel change, while everything else remained the same.

Which reinforces my belief that changing tires often is essential. Now I am not going to advocate Michelin just yet; I will need to verify how other brands and types fare.

This is a time when I'd wish I could have multiple Le Mans equipped with different tires, just so one can really fine tune the choice.

I am really impressed by those new tires though.

 

[PJPR01]

If the 5's are anything like the 3's and 4's before, you'll really enjoy them.  They do make the bike quite intuitive...and turns are effortless.  Think left and you're left, think right and you're right.  Bring the bike up one day to the National Forest and scrub the edges off those new tires!  

 

[p6x]

6 hours ago, PJPR01 said:

If the 5's are anything like the 3's and 4's before, you'll really enjoy them.  They do make the bike quite intuitive...and turns are effortless.  Think left and you're left, think right and you're right.  Bring the bike up one day to the National Forest and scrub the edges off those new tires!  

 

How would the Michelin compares with other brands?

According to the reviews on the Michelin site, the Road 5 wears out quickly. I will be able to confirm that in November this year, after I complete this year's Texas tour.

 

[p6x]

 

[p6x]

The journalists of Moto.it have made a nice comparison of the Michelin Road 5 with the Michelin Road 6.

Unfortunately, the video has no translation; just subtitles.

Here's the written article;

They did a back to back test between the 5 and the 6, including on the wet. Some nice Sicilian landscapes by the way.

These tires are suited for the V11; I installed a set of Road 5 last year, and wanted to check the Road 6 now, but had to fall back on the Road 5 since the 6 is in back order.

The road 6 has a dual compound, center compound is harder than the sides. I have been impressed by the Road 5 when I installed it last year. Like day and night. Corner entry was so easy, including small radius turns like the Twisted Sisters. A lot of feed-back.

I also got to ride under the Texas tropical thunderstorm, and they felt safe.

Now I know that each one of us here has his tire of choice, and the Michelin are a lot more expensive than other brands.

Are they worthwhile?

 

[PJPR01]

Interesting...a friend with a Stelvio just installed PR 6's here, he couldn't get PR5's!  Ironic!

Although it seems like there is no PR6 GT version which we like especially for the rear tire to get more tread life in the center.

I don't know if it's true or not, but several other riders claim they like the 6's better than the 5's from a durability perspective...will be interesting to see.

I'm still riding PR4's on all my bikes, hope I can keep sourcing them!

[p6x]

This is the last report about my experience under a biblical deluge on Monday 22nd of July 2024.

This was an absolute first in my life. I had never been exposed to that kind of rain intensity and duration on a motorcycle before. I did look at the weather forecast, and while it specified overcast with chance of rain, it did not exactly paint what it really was. Up to Grande Saline, the skies were dark, but no rain at all.

I left Grande Saline at 14:30 and I almost immediately encountered rain. Most of the travel was on 287 then 19, and I rejoined I-45 at Hunstville. Various roads, and while still under heavy rain, Farm to Market roads had almost no 18 wheelers, which made for better visibility. I also used some county roads, which surfaces were sometimes in very poor conditions.

In the process of doing some stops for the Texas Motorcycle Tour 2024, I decided to make a loop to complete those points I had missed because of my starter problem earlier that month.

Here's the map of the intended loop: 506 miles and a theoretical duration of 8:37 minutes, as per google maps. The total trip duration does not include any stop.

Find below the trip log as it happened, with the real times, the mileage is computed automatically between the departure and arrival points. Note that in any case the Guzzi odometer always comes short.

 

 

The Michelin Road 6 experience:

How can you review tires without factual data? how can you provide an unbiased opinion? how can you describe a very personal experience and feeling?

Difficult, but I am going to try;

The Michelin Road 6 that equip my V11 have about 5k miles on them.

As far as I understand, tires are evaluated on special closed tracks which are artificially made wet by a deluge system.

My experience was under the pouring rain, different asphalt quality, asphalt not evacuating water making hydroplaning one of the hazard. Obviously, other vehicles circulating, including trucks, both ways. Poor visibility, traffic lights.

The conditions were very different from that encountered on a closed track.

Am I biased? I am inclined to say yes. When I was a kid in the 60's, Michelin was present on the beaches, entertained the kids with Michelin men balloons, or Lego like Michelin men to build. So I heard about Michelin early in my life. Long time before I even got my first motorcycle.

However, before Guzzi, I never installed a Michelin tire on any of my 70's motorcycles! exclusively Dunlop K-81.

Michelin Tires seem to be more expensive than the rest of the known brands, Bridgestone, Pirelli, Dunlop, Metzeler... I don't know the reason, either marketing or... else.

Back to what I did during those four hours, I rode the bike until I could feel the hydroplaning symptoms creep. Sometimes, I would be able to get to max posted speed, 75 mph. Other times, the bike started to feel unstable at 50 mph; again depending on how intense the rain at that time, and the asphalt having a thin layer of water.

I kept my distance with preceding vehicles, also because the mist coming from the back of the trucks would impair vision. As you know, from a distance, you do not even see the rear lights!

I did some hard braking tests, not emergency braking, but hard enough.

Conclusion; I developed a lot of trust in my tires. Since those FM roads had a lot of curves, I felt at ease and relaxed.

Maybe I would have felt the same on other tire brands, maybe not. In any case, I vouch for the Road 6.

Now, this experience was unique in that nobody wants to go riding a motorcycle under heavy rain for any amount of time, if it can be avoided.

Today we still have the same bad weather in H'town. It seems that we can only have a pickling sun or drenching rains. Never anything in between.

Those were my six cents about the Road 6...

Edited July 25 by p6x