Hi, fellow riders! We're a life long riding couple in our 50s, and my wife has ridden her own bike for almost a decade now with tens of thousands of road miles to her credit including technical riding in the Appalachians and long hauls all over the eastern half of the US. Her back finally got the best of her though, and, being she's very short, the only way to get more suspension under her than her 2016 Victory Vegas 8-ball had was to get into a trike. So, since my last two bikes were Cross Country Tours, and she already knew the Vic 106 powertrain really well, we started looking for Victory touring bikes.
Of course, we really wanted a Lehman (Victory Vision) Crossbow, but those are rare as hens teeth. So, we ended up with this beautiful 2015 CSC Ventura conversion of a 2014 Victory Cross Country Tour. It has all the options that I considered mandatory (like the rake kit, performance brakes, reverse, fitted cover, etc.) and a bunch more. It's low mileage, clean, well constructed and solves the ride problem. We've been on a week-long road trip (and several hundred other miles) without a single back pain incident (that used to be several per ride)!
I'm in the process of making it ours with small tweaks now and plans for more involved mods over the Winter. One of the things we could just as well address now (or soon) is getting better tires on the rear end. It has a set of mismatched tires with a cheapish ultra high performance all-season Sumitomo on one side and some Wal-Mart special on the right (that looks to be installed backward [AEB by the "inside" mark on the outside shoulder :gah:]). I searched the forums for discussion about what characteristics to favor in REAR tire choice (yes, I see that the resounding choice of front is the Avon trike tire) but don't find much.
Seems to me that the tread wear/grip and load/comfort compromises usually in play for car tires are generally non-issues for trikes since the vehicle weight is so much less than for cars. I expect there's about 400lbs static load on each on this trike's rear tires vs at least double that for your average performance coupe or sedan (much less an SUV). That load is so much less than the target use case that I expect that most performance tire carcasses are actually way too hard to perform well (even with their soft tread compounds) and that more compliant touring class tires might deliver equivalent grip with much greater comfort (than a performance tire) especially where load rating is equivalent and excepting run flats. I would think that the tire models that darksiders prefer would usually fit the bill. Super light load makes trike rear tires extremely vulnerable to hydroplaning; so, one of the most important tire characteristics would seem to be water shedding capability.
So, although we're tempted to shod these with super sexy ultra high performance all-seasons like the CONTINENTAL EXTREMECONTACT DWS 06 PLUS or BFGOODRICH G-FORCE COMP-2 A/S PLUS (or even more exotic fare), I'm wondering whether the much beloved but rather boring MICHELIN CROSSCLIMATE2 might grip just as well as we ever need it to while delivering a softer ride, unreal wet traction, and resistance to hydroplaning. We already run Crossclimate2s on the wife's SUV, and they are awesome in all kinds of weather, ride super smoothly, and grip like crazy. Their treadwear rating is nominally high at 640, but the tread compound is extremely compliant (much more like a 300-rated performance tire); the prior/original version was a winter tire (and they just made it hold up to all season driving temps for version 2). I can't imagine a tread design more likely to evacuate water than this one, and I think I'd rather have that and a softer tread and carcass than whatever marginal extreme ideal conditions grip the performance tires give but that we'll never even be able to use.
All that said, I'm not super eager to throw almost $500 at a half-baked theory; so, I'd love to know whether anyone has direct experience with running the CrossClimate2s or other touring class tires, especially any with ultra soft tread compounds for severe snow service. Feel free to pipe in about any of this if you have an informed opinion too. Maybe tires with big open tread patterns like these are super noisy on a trike. Maybe I'm a total idiot. Tell me about it.
--Andy
Of course, we really wanted a Lehman (Victory Vision) Crossbow, but those are rare as hens teeth. So, we ended up with this beautiful 2015 CSC Ventura conversion of a 2014 Victory Cross Country Tour. It has all the options that I considered mandatory (like the rake kit, performance brakes, reverse, fitted cover, etc.) and a bunch more. It's low mileage, clean, well constructed and solves the ride problem. We've been on a week-long road trip (and several hundred other miles) without a single back pain incident (that used to be several per ride)!
I'm in the process of making it ours with small tweaks now and plans for more involved mods over the Winter. One of the things we could just as well address now (or soon) is getting better tires on the rear end. It has a set of mismatched tires with a cheapish ultra high performance all-season Sumitomo on one side and some Wal-Mart special on the right (that looks to be installed backward [AEB by the "inside" mark on the outside shoulder :gah:]). I searched the forums for discussion about what characteristics to favor in REAR tire choice (yes, I see that the resounding choice of front is the Avon trike tire) but don't find much.
Seems to me that the tread wear/grip and load/comfort compromises usually in play for car tires are generally non-issues for trikes since the vehicle weight is so much less than for cars. I expect there's about 400lbs static load on each on this trike's rear tires vs at least double that for your average performance coupe or sedan (much less an SUV). That load is so much less than the target use case that I expect that most performance tire carcasses are actually way too hard to perform well (even with their soft tread compounds) and that more compliant touring class tires might deliver equivalent grip with much greater comfort (than a performance tire) especially where load rating is equivalent and excepting run flats. I would think that the tire models that darksiders prefer would usually fit the bill. Super light load makes trike rear tires extremely vulnerable to hydroplaning; so, one of the most important tire characteristics would seem to be water shedding capability.
So, although we're tempted to shod these with super sexy ultra high performance all-seasons like the CONTINENTAL EXTREMECONTACT DWS 06 PLUS or BFGOODRICH G-FORCE COMP-2 A/S PLUS (or even more exotic fare), I'm wondering whether the much beloved but rather boring MICHELIN CROSSCLIMATE2 might grip just as well as we ever need it to while delivering a softer ride, unreal wet traction, and resistance to hydroplaning. We already run Crossclimate2s on the wife's SUV, and they are awesome in all kinds of weather, ride super smoothly, and grip like crazy. Their treadwear rating is nominally high at 640, but the tread compound is extremely compliant (much more like a 300-rated performance tire); the prior/original version was a winter tire (and they just made it hold up to all season driving temps for version 2). I can't imagine a tread design more likely to evacuate water than this one, and I think I'd rather have that and a softer tread and carcass than whatever marginal extreme ideal conditions grip the performance tires give but that we'll never even be able to use.
All that said, I'm not super eager to throw almost $500 at a half-baked theory; so, I'd love to know whether anyone has direct experience with running the CrossClimate2s or other touring class tires, especially any with ultra soft tread compounds for severe snow service. Feel free to pipe in about any of this if you have an informed opinion too. Maybe tires with big open tread patterns like these are super noisy on a trike. Maybe I'm a total idiot. Tell me about it.
--Andy
