Free Pirelli Strada

[charleshickman]

I got my free tire yesterday via UPS. It took about two weeks from the date I bought the rear tire. There are 57 free tires left.

[darencs]

So, It's been a couple months, who took advantage of the offer for the free Pirelli Strada? What do you think of them? I've got about 8K miles on my current set of Michelin Pilot Roads and it's time to start looking for replacements. What have any of you experienced with or heard about these tires?

[GREGFEELER]

So, It's been a couple months, who took advantage of the offer for the free Pirelli Strada? What do you think of them? I've got about 8K miles on my current set of Michelin Pilot Roads and it's time to start looking for replacements. What have any of you experienced with or heard about these tires?

I got mine, but am only half-way through getting them installed on my K1. FWIW, they LOOK really good.

I had an interesting conversation with the Metzeler marking manager. Remember - Pirelli owns Metzeler. He said they share "common technology sources", but have seperate production and marketing channels. Sounded to me like double-talk for "they are about the same tire but with two different names" - like Ford and Mercury. I noticed the Strada's have a virtually identical tread pattern to the Metz Z6's - and they were made in Germany. If I were making a case for UFO's this all would pass as proof - but the real proof is in the riding and it will be Memorial Day weekend before I'll get to find out for myself. Anybody with read data?

[darencs]

Thanks for the response Greg.
I haven't seen the Diablo Strada in person but in pictures it looks like the tread pattern goes closer to the center of the rear tire than it does on the ME Z6 rear. You're probably right about Metzler and Pirelli. Maybe PI fixed the things that people whined about on the Z6, like the the big wide bare spot in the middle of the Z6 rear that made it hard to tell when it was worn out.
I do know that the ~3K miles I put on my bike this winter while all the fun curvy roads were snowed/iced/gravelled over put big ugly flat spots in the middle of my Mich Pilot Roads where they're close to the wear bars and left lots of tread on the sides where it's more fun to wear them out.
Maybe next winter I need to find a cheap long wearing tire to put on and save the good tires for the spring.

[GREGFEELER]

Thanks for the response Greg.
I haven't seen the Diablo Strada in person but in pictures it looks like the tread pattern goes closer to the center of the rear tire than it does on the ME Z6 rear.

There's still a fairly wide area down the middle of the rear - about like the Z6. I REALLY like the way the Z6's work on my K1200RS, so I just use a tire gage on the wear bars rather than using my eyeball. I'll soon see how well that actually works.