All round rubber: Best sports-touring tyres for your motorbike

The best sports-touring tyres have evolved almost magical abilities. They have reserves of dry grip you’ll never use on the road, warm up in a flash, and load you with confidence in the rain. The result is that they last longer than any other type of tyre.

• Related: Best motorcycle tyre deals

There versatility also means they can be used on naked bikes, tourers, adventure bikes, sportsbikes and everything in between. Unless you ride off-road, do lots of trackdays, or are a dedicated Sunday morning headbanger, using any anything else is just burning rubber (and cash) for nothing more than pub bragging rights.

But what are the best sports-touring tyres? To find out, we’ve assembled the latest generation from each of the major brands for a back-to-back test on a typical sports-tourer, represented here by the wildly popular Suzuki GSX-S1000GT (read our review).

Best Deals at a Glance

Save 30% on Michelin Road 6 Motorcycle Tyre – £101.00 (was £144.29)
Save 35% on Metzeler Roadtec 01 SE Motorcycle Tyre Package – £270.00 (was £412.86)
Save 30% on Bridgestone Battlax BT-023 Motorcycle Tyre – £76.00 (was £108.56)
Save 44% on Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmart IV Motorcycle Tyre – £95.20 (was £167.15)
Save 39% on Pirelli Diablo Motorcycle Tyre Package – £161.00 (was £263.33)
Save 26% on Metzeler Sportec M9 RR Motorcycle Tyre Package – £273.00 (was £367.14)

The best sports-touring tyres at a glance:

• Best in test: Metzeler Roadtec SE 01 – view on Demon Tweeks
• Best for feedback: Pirelli Angel GT2 – view on Sportsbikeshop
• Best for neutrality: Michelin Road 6 – view on Demon Tweeks

The weather for our test remained consistently cold and wet all day – the perfect hunting ground for this type of tyre.

Best sports-touring tyres

What’s always interesting in a blind, back-to-back tyre comparison test like this isn’t how grip varies between manufacturers, because there’s little in it, but it’s how the tyres ‘talk’ to you.

We’ve seen how these new generation of the best sports-touring tyres all have superb wet weather grip, warm-up fast and will be a huge improvement over just about any ‘Original Equipment’ tyre that your bike comes with from a dealer. So, if you’re a fan of a particular brand, fit any of these and you’ll probably be very happy with your choice.

The feel and confidence each tyre brings to the rider under braking, acceleration and cornering changes depending how you ride.

But the performance of one set of tyres stood out as being head-and-shoulders better than the rest for both of us. Metzler’s Roadtec 01 SE filled us with confidence in all conditions and delivered a ride as close as it’s possible to get to turning wet roads dry beneath your wheels.

It’s the best sports-touring tyre money can buy, which basically means it’s the best tyre you can buy.

How we tested these tyres

This was a blind test. At no point did Michael or Matt know which tyres they were on. Both rode our set route; Matt taking the first stint, with an emphasis on warm-up time and stability, while Michael focused on ride quality and grip.

Each gave marks for steering, confidence, stability, ride quality and feel. We also measured operating temperature and usable tread depth. The hardness of the centre section of each was measured on the HA scale where 100 represents a fully solid object. Conditions were wet and 12-14°C. We used the recommended cold pressures.

The route

A 28-mile test route taking in fast, flowing A-roads, bumpy B-roads, a motorway stint, plus urban riding over a variety of coarse and polished surfaces.

The bike

We chose a Suzuki GSX-S1000 GT, Britain’s best-selling sports-tourer because its OE Dunlop RoadSport 2 tyres are merely OK and therefore there is much room for improvement. The bike was set on Mode B at all times, with minimal traction control intervention.

The logistics

Support and prices provided by www.mobile-bike-tyres.co.uk. Prices include fitting, but will vary between different suppliers.

Things to keep in mind

The best sports-touring tyres walk the line between sportiness, longevity, wet-weather performance and dry feel. This means that all sports-touring tyres involve an element of compromise.

- Just so you know, whilst we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this page, we never allow this to influence product selections - read why you should trust us.