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Member
Novice
What slicks do you use?
I'm considering a tire change and I have a couple of questions here for my fellow racers:
What slicks do you race on?
What bike do you ride them on?
What kind of race lap times are you getting on them at the full HPR track?
Any other general opinions from folks who've ridden on multiple brands in recent history are also welcome.
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Senior Member
Amateur
I've been using Dunlops for a long time. They seem to fit my riding style the best and Louden has superb trackside service.
I use them on my Ducatis - 1098R and 1199R.
As for lap times, decent times for me are high 1:55's on the full course.
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Member
Novice
Thanks for the feedback, Jim. I've been using the Dunlops for awhile as well. I started out on Pirellis, which I really liked because I always seemed to be able to know where the limit was with those tires. I switched to the Dunlops when I was in Georgia because that's what was available and, while I can appreciate that the Dunlops offer tremendous grip, I never have been able to understand the limit of them very well; every time I find the limit with the Dunlops it's always a surprise to me. Assuming you've had some similar experiences with the Dunlops near the limit (which seems to be a common complaint), do you have any setup tricks with the Dunlops to help get some better communication from the tires when they're near the limit?
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Member
Novice
Want to close the loop on this. I rode on a bike pretty similar to mine shod with the Pirelli slicks during the final weekend and came to 3 conclusions about my internal Pirelli vs. Dunlop debate:
1) I'm sure a very skilled rider could probably go faster on the Dunlops than the Pirellis; the grip from the Dunlops is just silly and when you do go over the limit, even though it's always a surprise, it's very easy to recover because the friction dropoff is very gradual.
2) I'm equally sure that I'm not skilled enough to fully exploit the Dunlops and that I can be faster on the Pirellis because I can tell what they're doing due to the softer carcass of the tire. I find most of my time on corner entry which was very intuitive on the Pirellis. The Dunlops, by comparison, were a leap of faith that the grip was going to be there; 99/100 times that was a safe bet, but that 1/100 times where you get a slide without warning was hell on my front end confidence and kept me from really trail braking like I wanted to.
3) I'll be running the Pirellis next year for reason #2
For a riding style comparison for anyone else mulling this over, assuming I get some familiarity with the track, my style relies heavily on hard braking and a strong corner entry. I'm not stellar mid corner, and I roll on the throttle smoothly on corner exit, so I require alot of confidence and feedback from the front tire. Pirelli wins my heart for this. If you're a corner speed rider, I have to give that one to the Dunlops. The mid corner grip from the Dunlops is unreal whereas I've had the Pirellis push a little at the apex.
If anyone is on the fence about this choice, hopefully my back to back comparisons give some insight to you.
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