I was in sudden need of a 120/90-16 rear tyre after the Metzeler ME77 on the back of my CB250 managed to get punctured by an 8mm drill bit. Scouring Oponeo I saw an interesting choice, the TW202. I fancied a change from the ME77s, more for novelty than anything else, and was tempted by the thought of some mild greenlaning with a knobbly on the back so it could at least push me out of the mud. Bridgestone's pictures of the TW202 also make it look a lot like Metzeler's original Tourance, and they are known to have excellent longevity. I ordered the Bridgestone, expecting this:
But what I got was this:
Quite a bit more knobbly than Bridgestone led me to believe, with much less rubber in contact with the road. Oh well, too late now! Some googling revealed this exact tyre is also the original equipment on the Yamaha Tricker, so it can't be that bad or short lived, surely.
The poor tyre man had to fight it on to the rim, the sidewalls of this tyre are very stiff. I also got funny looks and a comment of "is this going back in the same bike?". Don't question me, tyre man! Soon it was back in the bike and looking even more ludicrous than before..
Initial impressions were that Bridgestone seriously needs to work on their releasing fluid formulation, it was like riding on ice for the first 20 metres - something I have never experienced with other tyres. It quickly scrubbed in though, and I was soon happily forgetting it was there.. Once you get past the feeling of the rear somehow taking a wider line around each corner than the front it turns out to be a wonderfully grippy, confidence inspiring tyre doing nothing to earn the "Death Wing" nickname the range seems to have acquired. I was also soon offroading..
I found my way into some fair mud but the knobs seemed to make light work of it, it seems this tyre can do anything. I even had enough confidence in it to scrape the hero blobs under the footpegs, which is not something I manage to do at all often.
After around 500 miles the rear end started to "bump" a little at walking pace, I would guess this is where the tyre was starting to square off a little. This got progressively worse as the it wore down, but was never bad enough to make the bike difficult to control. The middle of the tyre continued to wear in a most exuberant manner, hardly surprising as digging a nail into the rubber shows it is made of something not far off Edam cheese, certainly not as hard as Emmental. My initial guess at longevity was 3000 miles but it went further than that, though at 4000 miles it was very square to the point where the knobs on the outside were supporting the bike as much as those in the middle. This led to some squiminess when cornering in the wet but it was never frightening and the tyre never let go, not once.
With 4067 miles under its knobs the 'Wing picked up a nail that was to finish it (and the tube!) off, but it was about due for replacement anyway (not the tube though, sob).
As you can see it was only around 1.5mm off the wear markers in the centre, though the wear in the centre had slowed significantly since the knobs on the side started pulling their weight. I may have been able to squeeze another 500 miles out of it by going well into the wear markers, but I'll never know. Considering the CB250 weighs around 145kg wet, I am around 80kg with all my gear on and the bike makes 20hp this is a short lived tyre, especially since I paid £58 for the privilege of trying it. For comparison the trusty Metzeler ME77 can be had for £52 currently and will easily last 7000 miles, I have stretched one out to 10,000 but by then the cords were just starting to show. They also arguably offer better grip than the 'Wing, but you don't get the fun of offroading quite the same.
Overall I give it probably 3/5, the grip is good whether it is dry, wet, warm or freezing cold but the wear rate is fast and it needing a tube is an annoying expense.
