How do you know a tire is "sticky?"

[Alpha Dragon]

So, I read these threads and people say this or that tire is "sticky."  I wonder how one knows?  If a tire was not sticky, one would be loosing traction in a curve, which would result in a fall, correct?  So, how does one really know if a tire is "sticky," cause I am not willing to find out if a certain tire is not sticky.  Make sense?

[Nogrey]

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about all the science behind making tires sticky. My brother is in the business so I rely on what he says a lot. I know that many others have tried them before me and I can take their suggestions. If you want to do a little research, go to tirerack.com and look at their high performance tire selection. They will give you all the theory you want. One thing I have noticed is that all the tires guys are putting on their motorcycles are high performance high traction tires. General ultimax HP, Michelin hydroedge, Michelin triple tread, all are hi-stick tires. Want "stickier"? Look at the "summer only" tires at tirereack. Then there are the even stickier street legal track tires. They all have a wear rating as well. Typically, the stickier tires have a lower wear rating because they do wear faster. For high performance tires like the general ultimax hp, that means you'll get around 50K miles out of it easy on a motorcycle. For the really high performance track rated tires, you can expect as little as 7K miles and they run as expensive as the MC tires do.
Happy hunting!

[Valker]

Not sure I'd classify the HydroEdge as 'sticky' since it has a wear rating of 900....

[Sludge]

If you go to www.tirerack.com  you can look up tires and it has all of their specifications as well as descriptions of the standard specifications and how the tires are tested. Pretty useful site even if I dont always order from them.

For Instance, my Yokohama AO48

Has a service description of 91W  (service description explained in detail http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=35)

The 91 represents its load index.  In this case 1356 lbs.
The W is a speed rating and in this case it is 168mph.

There is also a Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG).  (UTQG explained in detail http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=48)

My UTQG rating is 60 A A.  This indicates the tire wear rating is a 60 which means it wears out faster than their standard test tire.  There are also traction and temperature ratings of which my tire gets an A in both categories.

So this indicates that my tire has a sufficient load rating, and speed rating for my application.  It wears out fast has good traction and temperature characteristics.

Now, lets look at a common Darkside tire and see how it rates. (Not really comparing it to my tire because I picked mine with other factors in mind as well)

General Altimax HP

Service Description: 91H
UTQG: 600 A A

So we see it has the same load rating as the A048 and the speed rating is lower at 130mph.  It wears much better so far as longevity compared to A048 and has equal traction and temperature characteristics.

Hope this was useful.   Im not a tire guru, but I have read up on it some.

[Alpha Dragon]

Thanks guys.  I was envisioning having to go around corners making sparks on a wet road to find out if my tire was "sticky."

[ossiningvalkyrie]

+1 what Valker said, as usual and Sludge (that is a nice tire that Ao48)

The tire rack site has owner reviews  When the Goodyear tripletred came out it quickly got the best ratings for traction wet dry and even light snow (go figure) but not of all brands   cooper for one is not on their site.

The #1 ranking for sticky was yielded to the Michelin hydroedge in that department a few years later  I have ridden the triple, the cooper and the toyo  Each has their plus sides.

Besides sticky, which my toyo proxes T1R also was is the ratings AA and A for traction and temp  The "summer" tires are almost all AA A but the difference between AA and A is not great and the designation AA is fairly new so an old tire may be really AA but rated A  The triple tred was used by Daniel Mayer for years and he has written about his experiences in the life is a road series of great books and also on the vrcc articles pages

If you have a spare rear wheel with its own rotor just try one out and see how you like it.  They are all IMHO a PIA to get on and off so stick with the tire for a year to give it a real honest try in all conditions.  I no longer run it but thats just me, if it makes you more comfortable riding then by all means go for it and I hope it works for you.  Worst that happens is you take it off at some point and you have had a learning experience

careful research confirms as the pic shows