A trackday tyre isn’t the best option for road riders.
Trackday tyres are designed to work within a limited temperature range and in more controlled conditions. Most trackday tyres perform best when used with tyre warmers and they are also sensitive to tyre pressures and the track temperature.
When conditions are perfect, a dedicated trackday tyre will offer you more grip than a sports road tyre on the road.
However, on the road, those conditions are very few and far between and most of these variable are beyond your control. Plus the additional grip a trackday tyre could offer over a road tyre is negligible.
Road tyres have a wider operating window compared to a track tyre. The different compound, carcass stiffness and tread pattern used in a road tyre means that it will warm up faster than a track tyre. It’ll also hold its temperature for longer.
Just riding through a village’s 20mph speed limit could be enough for a track-focused tyre to lose surface temperature as they have to be worked hard to build and maintain their heat.
That’s why it makes sense to run a Sports tyre on the road and even a Sports Touring or Touring motorcycle tyre is a good option for fast road riders. The trouble is, a lot of riders of sportsbikes turn their noses up as Touring or Sports Touring tyres, believing that ‘stickier’ is better.
The fact is the ‘stickier’ a tyre is, the less versatile it’ll be. It’ll take longer to get to working temperature and generally speaking it won’t be as good in the wet and it won’t give you the feel of a Sports Touring tyre. Yes, a Touring tyre is extreme for a Superbike and most Touring tyres have a flatter profile than a Trackday tyre, so it won’t steer as well, so you have to factor that in.
However, as good as a track-focused motorycle tyre looks, it’s rarely the best option for pure road riding.
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