About to buy 2000 GS500E

[rtcpenguin]

Is there anything special I should know about the bike? It seems to be in excellent condition, and the only maintenance issue I identified was that the front tire was a bit worn.

What type of tire do you guys recommend for the GS?

[ajgs500]

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[pandy]

Welcome to the site!

My next tire is going to be this one:

Bridgestone BT45 Battlax Tire

Do a search on the BT45 on this site, and you'll pull up some comments.  

There's also another active thread right now that talks about the common issues with the GS's. Take a look around.  

[heent]

My wife has the same year GS500 that I passed on to her after using it as my first bike.  We just swapped the original rubber at about 6K miles with an Avon AM51 in front and an AM52 out back in the stock sizes.  They've gotten good reviews on this site (you'll have to look for the threads) and she likes them so far.  Also, they're pretty cheap here...

http://www.cyclespot.com/Motorcycle_Tires/AVON_HKM_AM51_AM52.html

We bought them from above and took in just the rims to have them mounted/computer balanced at a local shop for $30, so about $150 total installed (tires, shipping, mount/balance).  I don't see how we could have done it much cheaper, but we did have to wrench the wheels on and off ourselves - that is pretty straightforward though.

Good luck with the new (to you) bike.

[TarzanBoy]

I just recently put an Avon AV46 (Azaro-ST Sport Touring) 140/80ZR17-1 on.
So far so good!  It cost me $110, shipped.  I've heard that they grip pretty well
in wet conditions... but insofar I haven't had to ride in the rain.

Oops, I just realized that you were asking about a front tire!   I have a Avon 110 in the front...  not sure what exact model it is, though.

[rtcpenguin]

Thanks for the recommendations, heent, tarzan, and pandy.

The Avon AM51 seems like a good tire, and I can get one here: http://www.ronayers.com/catalogs/tires/parts.cfm?secid=7&type=165 for around $60 shipped. What is the difference between these:
AV-011  100/80S-16 Front  $50.37
AV-014  110/70H-17 Front  $52.99
AV-015  110/80H-17 Front  $54.30


The Bridgestone is considerably more expensive, is it worth the extra $40ish?

[scratch]

Welcome!

I too, like the Avons so far, having already gone through the OEM tires and the BT45's (which I also liked, good for the rain).

[heent]

I've got Bridge's Battlaxes on my '05 Z750S because that's what came on it.  They're a larger size and it's a very different bike so it's tough to compare to the stock size Avons on the GS; however, I've heard that the BT45's are better handling/gripping but at the expense of tread-life.  We got the Avons for my wife because she is not at all an aggressive rider and we wanted rubber that would wear well (long).

[RVertigo]

The stock front tire size is 110/70-17 and the stock rear is 130/70-17.  I have Sport Demons...  They're pretty good so far.

Also...  Everything you want to know about buying a used moto:  http://www.clarity.net/~adam/buying-bike-content.html

[rtcpenguin]

What would be the benefit of going with 80H vs 70H?

[RVertigo]

You could hear a cool rubbing sound...   :dunno:

Stock tires size works the best from what I've read.

[rtcpenguin]

Heh thanks. To be honest I wasn't sure what those numbers meant, but I figured it was something like width/height.

[scratch]

It is the height in percentage. A 110/70-17 would be a roughly 110mm wide by 77mm hieght for a 17 inch rim.