Buying new tires!!

[ryanmj19]

Looking for a new pair of tires I narrowed my two choices down to the

Avon AM26 Roadrider - 157 shipped via Dennis Kirk

Bridgestone BT-45 - $155 shipped   "               "

I'm most likely going to buy today or tomorrow and I wouldn't like to spent more than $150 what do you guys think of the tires? or do you know of any better deals?

P.S.
I live in Northern Michigan so not to many big windy roads I'm looking for a tire that will hold up as a commuter.

[bucks1605]

I put a Roadrider on my front wheel last season and I'm extremely happy with the performance of the tire. I haven't ridden that much on it so I can't attest to the longevity, but I'm assuming it will last.

[gsJack]

I think those are the best buys in oem size name brand tires right now for the GS, 110/70 and 130/70.  Those would be the G spec OEM GS500 BT45 tires that have a 32nd less tread depth than the other BT45 tires that size.

I'm running the Roadriders right now having put them on last fall and just checked the rear and it has about 4.5 of the original 7 mm center tread depth left.  Alowing for changing at about 1 mm when they hit the tread wear indicators it looks like that rear will go about 12k miles.

I think the AM26 are as sticky and handle as well as the BT45s I used 9 years ago but in fairness to B'stone they have updated them in both tread compound and profile since then.  The non G spec BT45 are more expensive than other BT45.  I'd get the AM26 again for myself.

You might want to compare prices here although those look like good prices:

http://www.americanmototire.com/

http://swmototires.com/

I got about 9.5k miles from my 1st rear BT45 and much less from the 2nd:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/GS500tirelog.jpg

[Sier]

Just one question..
Is it possible/will it benefit the bike, by buying wider tires?
130 looks very small to me. (But I'm a complete newbie).

[qwertydude]

Wider tires are going to change the handling characteristics some. You may like, you may not. But we do have narrower wheels so you can't go too wide without pinching the tire. 150/60-17 is I think the widest you can go. But it won't be as wide as you think because the narrow wheel will just squish the tire into an unnaturally taller profile. I'm running 140/70-17 kings only because it's cheap. Bigger tires may last longer than they're oem sized ocunterparts because of a larger contact patch also.

[Jerka]

I'm running the Roadriders 110/80 and 140/70.  I got them from AmericanMotoTire (or whatever Jack recommended...thanks Jack).  They were $153 shipped.  I've put a couple hundred miles on them and they seem like a great tire, but I don't have much to compare them to.

[ben2go]

120-60-17 front and 160-60-17 rear Shinko 005's $158 shipped. Got them from www.ridenow.com