Motorcycle Tire Specials: Major Market Links, Category by Category

After passing through the Bridgestone Tire and Rolling Train School and the Le Mans Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Moto-Station presents a table that compiles the main tires on the market for motorcycles over 125 cm3. A tool that will allow you to better determine during selection which tires are in direct competition.

Oftentimes, when you think about changing motorcycle tires, you don't know the full range of products available and even less what competing tires are in the same category. Even if it is not exhaustive, the table below reflects the current motorcycle tire market fairly accurately.

Some categories are divided into two because manufacturers often offer two links in these categories: one from the "first line" - modern design tires - and one from the "second line" consisting of less modern and less expensive tires, often the subject of advertising campaigns.

Racing tire: Racing bike tires - Hypersport or Racing Street - are approved for the most aggressive riders. Designed for the circuit, for recreation or amateur racing, they are approved for road use. With very few tread patterns (about 7% serrations) and shoulders that are close to slick, they have very few tread patterns and therefore do not put forward water evacuation as a main argument.

Supersport motorcycle tire: a notch lower than Racing for on-track use, they feature higher notch speed and a chemical rubber compound for increased road life. These motorcycle tires are still built to withstand days on the track or driving with high levels of performance and safety.

Sport bike tire: we enter a category that strives for a certain versatility: use on dry and wet roads, sports use on the road and on the track. Sport bike tires are designed to meet the high level of constraints between track performance and wet drainage. This is one of the best-selling categories in France.

Touring tire: The second category most appreciated by French bikers, Touring or Sport GT motorcycle tires are gradually gaining market share in other categories. Designed for everyday road use, their design and groove often enhance performance and safety on wet ground. They use a mixture of chewing gum and technologies (in particular, bigomme) that provide good endurance on the run. This category of motorcycle tires has made significant progress in terms of performance (wet and dry) and can now be fitted to roadsters, GTs and even sports cars with intelligent driving of any displacement.

Basic motorcycle tire: these are tires designed for a volume of less than 600 cm3. They are usually hardy and do not focus on sportsmanship. Available in sizes 16, 17 and 18 inches, these tires are often narrow. This is a category of motorcycle tires that is about to undergo a major update with the introduction of new small and medium sized cylinders on the market.

Custom motorcycle tire: As the name suggests, Custom tires are equipped with ... customs. Please note: As the manufacturer's exclusive suppliers, some manufacturers (such as Bridgestone or Dunlop) offer up to one benchmark for each motorcycle. However, this category will undergo short-term rationalization.

Motorcycle track: The links here are the best-selling as well as the most road tires in this category, which have accompanied the evolution of multi-cylinder trails, increasingly expensive, heavy and powerful. Thus, the big cats disappear after the update, in favor of more travel-type envelopes. Performance (wet and dry, running endurance) is slowly but surely approaching what 100% road tires offer.