Looking for tire recommendations...

The XJ650LJ I picked up over the winter is going to need some new rubber come nice weather and I'm wondering what you guys are running.

If I had my choice, I'd put Michelin Road 5 tires on it, but they don't come in the proper sizes. I need recommendations for tire that come in 100/90 19 for the front & 120/90 18 for the rear.

So far I'm looking at the Michelin Road Classic - https://revzilla.com/motorcycle/michelin-road-classic-tires?sku_id=10043026 and the Continental Classic Attack Vintage Radial - https://revzilla.com/motorcycle/continental-classic-attack-vintage-radial-tires?sku_id=908335. I can get sets of both front & rear tires for either of these in the sizes listed above.

 

Dunlop D404 is a quality tire

 

My personal opinion and practice has been to use 1 size larger on the front. I have done this on several makes of motorcycle and several XJ's to include an LJ. What I consider to be the biggest advantage of this is that it makes the speedometer much closer to accurate. If you compare your speedometer reading to a GPS you will be pretty surprised at how much slower you are actually going compared to the speedometer reading. I don't ride hard enough or fast enough to notice a difference in handling. I am standing by and expecting a considerable amount of blow back from this opinion but it has worked well for me for several hundreds of thousands of miles.
As to brand of tires I have had very good experiences with Shinko 712 series. I expect some of the premium brands will last a bit longer but the price difference have not seemed worth it. When Shinko first come into the motorcycle market when they bought Yokohama's motorcycle business there were some quality issues but I have not heard or read about any problems in several years nor experienced any issues with the ones I have had and worn out.

As far as radials go I think you might want to be careful there and do some research as the XJ wheels are way too narrow to properly use radials. That said there might be some out there made to work with the narrow wheels.

 

My bike is just the plain 83 750 Maxim. I just installed a Dunlop D404 on the front in August for the bike to pass its safety inspection to get it road legal, and am planning on a D404 for the rear for this upcoming season. Had them on the CB900C I had a few years as well, and limed the way they handled.

I'm not an agressive rider. Out to enjoy the ride and not rush anywhere.

 

I have had good luck with Shinko tire on my Seca , other bikes I've had I used Dunlop's with good luck as well .

 

On second set shinko. Last set no weights to balance rear, half ounce on front. 6000 km on last set not much wear.
Cheap enough for me to replace every two year!

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've run Shinko tires on the 550 before and was pretty happy with them. Never had the Dunlop 404's though, so I'm leaning in that direction.

I've still got a couple of months before it's riding season around here to commit.....

 

My 2 cents.
Bridgestone battleaxe.
Longest wearing tyre and stickiest on cornering I've ever used.

Love em!

 

Do you have the BT46? If so how have they been? I am about to pull the trigger on those but as I was digging around I saw a decent bit of people say they only got like 5k or 6k miles out of them and surprisingly a lot of people saying the new tire(s) they got were out of round and no good.