Sport touring is where it’s at
Because of the number of new adventure bikes being sold you might think tyres for that type of machine would rule the rubbery roost. But no. Up to May this year 16,000 ‘trail road’ tyres were sold in the UK compared with 82,000 in the ‘sport touring’ category and 70,000 ‘hypersport’ tyres (which includes treaded race tyres as well as sticky road rubber). ‘Sport touring is undoubtedly the largest sector,’ says Simon Carter from Pirelli. ‘Obviously some adventure bikes have 17in front wheels so will use sports touring tyres and skew the figures a bit, but if you think of all the bikes out there that can use sports touring tyres, it’s significantly more than the number of adventure bikes.’