With the happy demise of the horrible Mitas MC25 I was in need of yet another 130/70-17 rear tyre. There's plenty of choice from the likes of Duro and Vee Rubber but I am now put off from third/fourth tier manufacturers somewhat and decided to treat myself to a European tyre. In fact to heck with it, I work in British manufacturing and should support it! Also there are precisely no reviews for this tyre from Avon so that'll be interesting. £55 later I had one in my possession, ahh feel the quality of this fine thing. "Made in England" it will surely say..
Oh, okay then. The Mitas/Sava was also made in Slovenia so alarm bells were ringing.. Loud alarm bells. The tyre is also really stiff to handle it I would put it on par with the Metzeler Sportec Klassik - if this tyre is for 125s then why make it this stiff? Turns out it does indeed have all the plies:
At least it shouldn't struggle to keep the bike in line. More pictures for your delectation, this is a review after all..
After some faff the tyre was fitted to my Z250SL:
And it seems to have quite a lot of tread depth, which is marvellous:
So, what's it like? First impressions are that it is indeed really very stiff, I wouldn't mind putting one on the back of my K100 let alone a 125. Letting the pressure down to 15PSI still didn't have the tyre squishing at all when I bounced up and down on the seat, it's almost like a run-flat.
At an initial pressure of 32PSI (as per Kawasaki's recommendation for the original Dunlop TT900) I set about testing and found it to be a great improvement over the Mitas, wet roads are no longer a test of Speedway skills and dry grip is even more plentiful. It has behaved impeccably on the frosty roads that we lucky Brits get to use in Winter and wet weather grip is perfectly adequate if not astounding - if really "making progress" on slightly wet roads the tyre can slide a bit on corners (particularly if you hit a polished surface at the same time), but stick to normal speeds and it's absolutely fine. In the first 500 miles it also seems to have softened up a touch, it's not as chattery now but I would still say it's a very stiff tyre.
Wear updates will of course come in time, stay posted.
**UPDATE**
I ended up running this tyre at 28PSI, it's so stiff that it still doesn't wobble all over the place at this pressure but it at least isn't too hard and chattery. As far as wear rate goes, well, at 3110 miles I can only describe it as disappointing..
You can also see how it has squared off, it wasn't bad at all until the tyre saw some motorway miles and after a few trips up and down, well..
I'm also sad to say that after around 2000 miles the tyre became really quite slippery in the wet and I can spin the rear up in 4th gear, yes it's better than that awful Mitas MC25 but not by a lot. Given the not-too-cheap price of these I'm really struggling to find any reason to recommend them to anyone right now. Further updates to come..
**FINAL UPDATE**
At last I can get rid of this thing, 5685 miles sees it down to the wear markers:
After around 4K it became really very slippery in the wet, the lack of grip actually starting to rival the Mitas MC25 - I really do suspect these tyres are closely related. It constantly threatened to let go if a damp patch of road was touched, full wet weather was very precarious indeed. Dry grip was always fine, the tyre was always incredibly stiff giving a harsh ride even though I ended up running it at about 26 PSI and even let it drop to 12 before feeling the need to blow it up again! Overall I couldn't wait to get rid of it, this tyre is a liability.
At the time of finishing this review these are selling for £70.50 on https://www.moto-tyres.co.uk/ which makes them more expensive than a Dunlop TT900 (£62.10, excellent and longer lived) or a Pirelli Angel City (£63.70 with glowing reviews from many real people) and even the Pirelli Diablo Rosso II (£67.80 sporty radial loved by Americans). Sadly I see no reason why you should bother with this Avon at all.
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