Death Wings

[Two Plugs]

Ha Ha. is that tyres, age, or beer that you fall over so much?

JK

Only one right answer:

There are two types of motorcyclists:

1. Those, who have felt down
2. Those, who will fall down.

Around 150,- € for a proper set of crashbars or 1.000,- for a piece of Honda plastic... What's your choice?

[Jasper]

 I swapped out the OE TW for a long two-up trip.
They were "ok"....I had to ride the new bike home (650kms) in light snow, wet slushy roads but mostly black surfaces...

BTW I didn't drop the bike because I didn't have crashbars installed yet

Anakee 2 and 3 since then (see thread on Anakee Tyres)

[jackyork]

@ Jasper: I can't follow what you're saying there. You rode 650 Kms in the slush with TWs and they were OK? Or you 'swapped them out' changed? them for Anakees before?

JK

[Bønne]

Thanks for the detail Bonne. Your 'not smiley' says you didn't like the TWs; did you know they were bad at the time, or just when you changed tyres?

That´s right, I didn´t like the TW´s at all! As i wrote in my first topic, I think they are terribly for the Varadero. On dry road they were okay (but not
good), in rain they felt unstable and slippery and on gravel the front wheel were "sailing"  .

Do I dump the wings and fit better tyres, or ride steady and use the 'savings' to buy crash bars?

At the end it´s your own decision, but I will say; do you feel unsafe riding on the TW´s, change them. You have worn them half way out, so it´s not
a big loss. If you keep them, mount crashbars and loose the bike, I think you will regret that you didn´t change them anyway...
And crashbars don´t guarantee that you won´t break anything, a mirror, a lever or a pannier.

From a safety point of wiew, crashbars won´t prevent you from loosing a bike on bad tyres...they only reduce the consequences. But good tyres may
prevent you from loosing the bike in the first place...and there´s nothing that keeps you from mounting crashbars later on.

I assume your bike is hibernating to, so why not start the season on a new fresh good set of tyres, then you don´t have to worry about that anymore
this summer  .

I don´t have crashbars on my Varadero, as I consider myself as a capable rider doing my riding based on keeping the bike on the wheels  . On the
other hand, my winterbike (Africa Twin), has got crashbars, but riding in snow and ice is very different conditions from riding in summertime, so in this
case it´s an extra security not to smash everything if something goes wrong  . Beside that, they were mounted when I bought it and I see no
reason why I should dismantle them  .

[jackyork]

@Bonne, I understand everything you say and agree with most of it. My point, in all of this is to find out if my favoured tyre manufacturer has produced a 'lemon', and if so, should they suffer for it?

The tyres ARE half worn but that's how they came, I haven't had the wear out of them and if I had known the reputation of the Death Wings at the time, I would have bargained harder for a change in the deal.
Regarding bars, I have been bitten twice by Varas while almost stationary, so it's not a question of riding accordingly, I'm only just big enough for the beast and there have been some 'issues'.
The bike didn't hibernate this winter, just had a couple of months off, so service for the year, £200, insurance, £120, MRA screen £60,headlamp guard £25, clothing sundries £30...add a tank of petrol, and we're £500 before we've hit the road. Crash bars £137 and tyres at what, another £200+? It's all very nice, until the CFO notices all this and stops my pocket money.

After all this, I'll monitor the performance; if there are ANY 'moments', it's straight to the Tyre bay and fit Anakees.

If that is the case, as advised by so many of our Varadero fraternity, I really think we should make noises that Bridgestone and the motorcycle community at large can hear.

JK
PS When you spellcheck Anakees, it offers SNAKES! I think it might be a sign.

[Jasper]

@ Jasper: I can't follow what you're saying there. You rode 650 Kms in the slush with TWs and they were OK? Or you 'swapped them out' changed? them for Anakees before?

JK

Sorry JK 
...When I picked up the "new" bike it had TW's and I had to ride home +650kms (cold, light snow & slush and ice pellets)
This was mid-April and by July I had the first set of Anakee 2 on. I don't think the TW's were particularly"bad" it's just that the Anakee are better! I agree it would be preferable for Honda to install a "quality" tyre as OE.
I do prefer the Anakee 3 over the Anakee 2. But, as many have said before, if you want to go off-road - get knobbies

I recall my Hondas from the 70's and 80's had Yokohama tyres as OE ...now this is a tyre that should be called a "slipster". I think I replaced them with Avon RoadRunners and Dunlop TT( ?)

[jackyork]

@jasper. Thanks for that; it just goes to show how things change; Yokos have a good reputation now, at least on cars.

I can live with your assessment of the situation in that Anakees are better, as long as wings are adequate but if you've been following this thread, the Euro guys are all Bob Dylan and 'You're bound to fall....' so it's all pretty worrying. So much so that I contacted Bridgestone and they have passed the query to their motorcycle dept.----they say.
Watch this space.

JK

[jackyork]

Phone call today from Bridgestone Technical centre in UK, re; the TW152/ 101 factory fitted to my 2010 model Varadero.
Confused wording but their 'official' response is that  both they and Honda worked together to develop a tyre suitable for the application as required by the Varadero; that being 'mixed' surfaces. He  was a little surprised to hear that the Honda handbook states that the XL1000V is not designed for offroad use.
A more Tarmac biased tyre would be the Battlewings, as supplied with my 2008 model but if ridden accordingly, I shouldn't find myself going down the road on my backside.
So there you have it gentlemen.

JK
PS Beautiful day here today, so managed to put them to the test (a little). First twitch in the wet and it's off to Michelin.

[Two Plugs]

Moved the topic to the Varadero Tyre Centre.

[jackyork]

Thanks Bernard. I thought about putting it there but wanted to keep the thread.

Reading about the new PR4 it's still not sure which is the most suitable, only that I won't be buying new TWs.

JK

[jackyork]

So that's it: Jack: 0 Death Wings: 1

Going very carefully, aware of the greasy conditions, when the back overtook the front and I went down the road on my backside.
Bike out of commission for near future.

JK

[JosepM]

Wow 
How are you? That's the most important thing!

Josep

[zebulon]

Hope every thing is ok with you !

[jackyork]

Update on Death Wings.
My bike, first registered 13/03/2012 (week 10)* (must have been dealer registered) sold to first owner 01/11/2012 (week 41*)

Bought by me (from dealer) 07/09/2013 with 6,000 km(4,013 miles) as second owner (I now [28/04/14] discover I am third owner but nothing very suspicious in history, other than dealer 'talking on the hoof'). M/C at this time 18 months old.

Took Bridgestone 'Trailwing' tyres to supplier of new Michelins to file official complaint with Bridgestone. Lady filling out paperwork and another on phone reads date code to Bridgestone who announce they will not even collect them as......they are now SEVEN YEARS OLD!
Date code 4407 means week 44 * ie November 2007. So at first sale, the tyres had three weeks of life to run of the official five year limit.
We know the last production of the Varadero was 20010/11, so I can picture the scene of some clerk at a desk searching the stock manifest for tyres and there they are in warehouse 51 where they have been for the last three years. Or was it the other way round and Honda called Bridgestone to see what they had near 'sell by date'?

Tomorrow, I start more enquiries.

JK

[zebulon]

A new set of BW501/502 after the French meeting (this week-end ) is ordered for riding to the VIM