Over the weekend of the 27th & 28th July I did about 500km on my new Pirelli Sports Demon tyres. I managed to cover pretty much all types of surfaces,
smooth new bitumen, patched up broken tarmac, gravel strewn back roads, unsealed roadworks, oily old tarmac and freeway running on bitumen.
Right from the start the Pirelli's felt very good. A big improvement over the Bridgestone BT-45's that were on the bike when I bought it. Bearing in mind the BT's
were half worn, and they were radial too where the Pirelli's are crossply/bias ply construction may have a lot to do with it. I've read where some riders have fitted radials to their mid 80's VF's with good results-but they may be riding mostly on good surfaces, where here in Australia our 'B' roads can be in very poor shape indeed. Apparently the radial tyres provide more feedback to the chassis than it can cope with, doing strange things to the handling, and that applies to most cycles built before about 1986.
Straight line stabiity at speed was excellent, minor surface irregularities had little effect on directional stability. Turn in transition from upright to lean was smooth with no surprises, and mid corner stability was great-I even hit an unseen 'dip' on one 25km/h posted corner at about 40km/h and it didn't faze the grip at all. On the unsealed gravel road works and gravel strewn backroads there was no 'walking' usually associated with road tyres on those surfaces, though I must admit I didn't explore the loose gravel grip levels, after being brought undone by loose gravel in the past!
I bought these tyres based on what other riders & testers commented on regarding overall wet and dry grip not being concerned about longevity at all.
The VF is a heavy bike, and I think it will work it tyres quite hard during spirited riding. It'll be interesting to see how they go with the bike loaded for a weekend away when our Summer kicks in. I'm still to use these tyres in the wet, but I'm sure that day will come with our usual Summer storms!
