I was warned by my dealership to stay away from the Avon Speedmaster Rib front and the SM Mark 11 Safety Milelage rear yet I see these tires on countless bikes in The Horse mag and saw them on most of Sucker Punch Sallys bike at the Spring rally in Myrtle Beach. I just wanted to know if any of you are running these tires or any experiences you might have had with them. I want that old school looking tire setup.....are there any alternatives to these tires and where can I find old school looking tires?

 

I've never heard anything but good about Avon tires.

 

I guess he was trying to sell you something he had in stock.

 

They put them on casue it sounds cool. Avon tires are ok but are a softer compound.
You will get better over all use form dunlaps.
Unless your racing your bike then you may what to use one of the softer tires.

 

I havent reached the point where the stock tyres need changing on this bike yet. However, I always used Avon tyres on previous bikes and as a make generally found them to be excellent.

 

There is a huge difference in Avon speedmasters and venoms. The bobber builders and custom guys use the sm since is has the vintage look and tread profile vs. performance. Straight line is fine on those tires but they dont offer neutral steering&nbsp\\;\\\\\\;\\\\\\\\\\\\\\;or good cornering since they tend to track really straight and have less of a rounded profile. I run Venoms front and back on mine and they're great, very sticky. My front in fact has about 4-5k on it already and I'm sure I'll get another 5-8 out of it and probably 15k on the rear.
I'd never use stock Dunlops again...while they're hard and last long (14k on my front stocker and 16k on the rear) the grip on them sucked and they would slide easy and I found them fairly dangerous on wet roads even back when they only had 5k on them especially the front since the 21" has a very narrow contact patch.