Front tire on rear of bike

Today at class I see someone is riding their B last and it has metzeler tires on it, man I'm getting sick of only having pirelli or dunlop in 120/80/16 size. The pirelli is a better tire and cheaper but wears out faster, I don't know if I got 2000 out of this last tire. It has two plugs and will be replaced shortly.

Heres the deal, I can get either the pirelli or a scooter tire but the metzeler the guy had on his bike said "Front" on it. Anyone ever ran a front tire on the rear of their bike? I ride the punky buellster pretty hard and go through both tires and brakes it would be nice to use a different tire. I like the pirellis but they seriously wear pretty quickly.

Any tips or suggestions are appreciated!

I've not done it, at least not that I can recall. But it is an old thing to do. From "back in the day" the instructions were to simply run the tire backwards if you mount it up front.

Yeah, I've run the same tires front and rear. A front tire on the back should not be a problem. You do usually rotate them in the other direction, but I really don't think it makes that much difference. Metzler tires are my favorite. Mezlazers rock. I think they are called Lazertech or something now. I tried Pirelli's once. They were super cheap at the time, but didn't last that long, even on the Sporty.

Great to hear, sounds like I'll include "front" tires in the search.

Thanks Foxy and Doc! I like that everyone talks about how harley riders are a bunch of joker poseurs, but the two main groups of riders I see on the road are bmw and harley riders. I hate to say it but I don't think bmw riders have any fun, a bit too stern.

Nice night and for the 4th remember the constitution, I wish a certain constitutional scholar would!

I'm doing that now with my CBR125. The stock sizes are so small, I have a Kenda Cruiser front on the rear. There are no front/rear marking on it.

Since they have a 130 70 17, I'm gearing it down, and going to try that on the rear and the 110/70 17 (currently on the rear) on the front.

Nice ZW, I was thinking about Kenda tires, my motorcycle would have the same maker of tires as my bicycle.

I did it on the Murdercycle. Twinstars have weird 3.00-17 and 3.50-16 tires. I used Pirelli fronts on both ends.

Normaly you can use fronts on both ends but not "rear" on fronts as the sidewalls are diffrent or so i've read.

Bridgestone Trail wings come in 120/16 i'm using them with good luch on a xr100 road racing and flat tracking. road racing on small go kart track and the BIG 1.6 mile road course at NHMS. They stick well don't know how long they'll last..

44Dwarf wrote: Normaly you can use fronts on both ends but not "rear" on fronts as the sidewalls are diffrent or so i've read.

At least for those of us with TW200s, you have little choice to run "rears" on the front unless you want to stick with the crappy stock tire. And there seems to be little to no problems doing so

In reply to benzbaronDaryn:

The bonus is that they're very reasonably priced.

Since the options are limited in these sizes, the CBR 125 guys get a little creative with tires. Also kenda (dual sport) tires

Yeah, done it. Put a slightly used tire off a Harley dresser front on the back of my XS650. Same size. Rode it like that for a few months till I had the $$ for a proper new tire.

Ok I ordered some Avon roadrider that have front/rear fitment. I felt this was the best bang for the buck, oh and the tire is rated for 149mph at which point the tire would be the only part left of the bike.

Thanks for the help folks, I'll keep y'all posted as to how it works out.

Carefull with the Avons they come in two compounds dot cert "RACE" and "Street" Race will wear fast but yes they stick so well. Were runing the "Race" compound on the RD350 road race bike.

Thanks for the warning 44Dwarf, it looks like these tires are just regular street tires nothing too special. If I get 2500 miles out of a rear tire I'm happy, I think it might be my safe'nsane riding style.

Yea, the Roadrider series is just their generic ho-hum street tire. It's no performance tire. Not that it's a bad tire, or has bad reviews. Just it's not sticky compound race type tire.

http://www.avonmoto.com/products/street-bias/roadrider

I've only run Pirelli and Dunlop tires and for an extra 15$ I figure I'll give avon a try. Tires on the buell burn out so quickly I just need to try something else. Last time I tried ordering a different tire brand the tire was NLA.

Thanks for the help and suggestions I do appreciate it. The tire is shipped I'll let y'll know how it goes.

Both Avons are good tires and do stick well for there size but race compound on the road will not last. we get about 8 weekends out of the race tire on the RD. Weekend is 4 rounds of 5 min practice and 4 (10 lap) races

I remember when I was in San Diego there was a really cool shop Lee's Cycles put tires on my bike for me and a guy pulled in running race tires. They literally looked like they were melting, you could here them sticking to the pavement.