MICHELIN ROAD 5
If long-lasting sporty tyres are what you’re after, Michelin’s new Road 5s might be just the ticket.
Four years ago Michelin launched their Pilot Road 4 – a sport-touring tyre that covered you in every sense; from riding in the pissing wet to having a little hoon on a track day. Four years, 1.5 million tyres and €641 million in development later (throughout the entire Road range), Michelin say they’ve stepped up the game once again, offering an all-new product with improvements in wet performance, dry performance and even longevity.
How have they pulled this off, you might be wondering? Well, Michelin have been incredibly busy creating an all-new Two Compound Technology (2CT) system for the rubber for starters, which sees performance enhanced by using different construction in the front and rear tyres to improve longevity in the rear without sacrificing feel in the front. Genius! After years of trial and error (no one’s perfect), the finalised 2CT tech features an all-silica make-up that’s stiff in the middle (for both strength and stability in a straight line), and soft enough on the edges to encourage fast warm-up times, high grips levels, precise handling, and feel.
The rear rubber’s even more trick. Dubbed the Michelin 2CT+, the rear tyre is based on the same principles but with added silica for better resistance to wear so it will actually be slightly stiffer, while the edges are constructed from an all-carbon black compound which works like a slick when you get to about 38º lean angle (more than you could ever achieve in the wet, apparently). While we’re on the subject of wet, the French marque moved the tyre’s traction levels on by introducing deep sipes that open up as the tyre wears down, helping to channel even more of the slippery stuff away from goodness of the tyre’s footprint. It’s all good stuff, and contributes significantly to the overall revolution of the Road 5.
And it really is a revolution. Tested back-to-back, the Road 5s spanked the Road 4s by three seconds a lap around a 60 second circuit, which is pretty damn significant in my book. But setting laps times is one thing, and performing well on the roads is something else altogether, which is why we headed out to somewhere warmer than Blighty to give them a blast.
EASING IN
With the sun almost breaking through at a reasonably warm Monteblanco circuit in Spain, it was time to finally give the Pilot Road 5s a good seeing to, starting off with a dry workshop on track – for all of six laps, that is… I bagged three laps on Ducati’s Supersport, before clocking the same mileage on BMW’s S1000XR, both times heading out on brand new, cold rubber.
Yep, I was twitching at the thought of the gig, but it was sufficient enough to confirm that the rubber was generally quite stable, warmed up relatively quick and gave decent feedback. In honesty, the track test wasn’t comprehensive enough to paint a whole and fair picture, but we all survived the exercise and the general impression was of a usable sporty road tyre, rather than a damp squib. Job done, then? Not quite. Next up came a wet track handling course, complete with a high speed slalom and heavy braking zone. In all honesty, I’m not the biggest fan of the wet but the 5s did give me the confidence to ride faster than I normally would on road rubber. They felt instantly grippy and offered a surprisingly positive amount of feedback that’s arguably pretty hard-wearing and built for distance above all. The new tread design does wonders for firing the water out of the way, and even on the high speed slalom the Road 5s gripped impressively well, while still offering a level of flick-ability you’d expect from a much sportier tyre. All good stuff.
TESTING
Finally, with the sun shining and an arsenal of Road 5 clad bikes for our abusing, we kicked off on a 230km trip around the roads of Seville to get a proper feel for how well the Michelins coped with everyday antics. Jumping on a Yamaha MT-07 for the first leg of the road ride the Road 5’s dry abilities immediately shone through.
Thanks to the latest-gen compounds, there was astounding amounts of feel on the edge of the tyres. As the roads became twistier the Michelins kept on taking every single ounce of abuse I could throw until the MT’s softly damped suspension was screaming ‘no more’. Thankfully, a coffee stop and bike swap was on hand where I traded my Yammy for a something a bit beefier: an Aprilia Tuono V4. It was only when strapped on to the V4 rocket ship where the Road 5s began to falter slightly, starting to struggle under the mammoth amounts of power as we took in some absolutely stunning roads and some undeniably questionable stretches of tarmac in equal measure.
Maybe it’s the extra silica for resistance to wear, or maybe it was just me being a knob on the throttle and asking way too much from a sports-touring tyre, but that initial hit on the gas from the Aprilia just seemed that little bit much for the Road 5s, causing the traction to kick in and the dash to light up like the local discotheque.
I had to keep reminding myself that I was riding on a tyre built to last rather than go fast when pushing that gorgeously plush Aprilia front end into corners, but I felt egged on by the decent front end feel and feedback. Being honest, they delivered as expected; being a capable tyre that was built with distance at heart over outright grips levels. Despite being plastered with new tech, pleasantly rolling profiles and cleverly shaped sipes, the Michelin Road 5s were never made for setting lap records, but to give a predictable and long lasting road-friendly riding experience which is exactly what they do.