Avon Venom Tyres are the Best!

[V7Goose]

Avon Venom tyres have a remarkable following here. Most of us who run them (especially with the MT90 front) feel the handling is the best we have experienced. I got 14,000 miles out of the first rear tyre (after only getting 8,000 from the stock Brickstone), so they seem to wear very well.

 

Best prices and service to buy them from SW Moto Tires in Tucson, Arizona. They have a number of web sites and names, but easy to find with a Google search. They ship free if you buy at least two tires.

[Gained]

I copied & saved this from an earlier post by Goose, so I'd have the info readily available when it came time for new tires. Inserting here so he doesn't have to rewrite his critique & rationale. If Goose needs to modify after all this time, I'm certain he will! EDB

 

2005 RSV

I have only had my new Avon Venoms on for about 20 miles, so it is way too soon for me to comment reliably on the handling in general, but I really wanted to tell y'all about the fantastic improvement in low speed handling - far beyond my wildest imagination! I don't need to tell any RSV owners about the ponderous handling at parking lot speeds. Once you get it into second gear it is great, but creeping along in first and making any sharp turn is like trying to hold up a falling telephone pole! As soon as the steering head gets very far to either side, you have to forcibly push back on the bars to keep it from just slamming all the way to full lock.

 

I just mounted an MT90HB-16 on the front (kept the stock tire size in the rear). This tire is 1" narrower than stock, but the same diameter. Well with this new front tire, this thing is a different animal all together! The heavy steering is totally gone. Even at the slowest possible speeds, I could pull figure-8s in the small residential street in front of my house with complete ease. The steering is completely neutral now, no matter how slow I am going or how far I have turned the bars.

 

I was expecting some improvement based on other reports, but nothing this dramatic!

 

Both of these Avon tires are the same diameter as the Bridgestones I just took off, which means the bike sits exactly the same height front and rear. I have made no other changes to the suspension, so the only thing that could have changed the handling of this bike so dramatically today is the new Avon tires, and at slow speed, I don't think it has anything to do with the rubber compound or tread design. That only leaves the slightly narrower tire as the cause. I recommend you think about the MT90-16 or 130/90-16 front tire next time you change them. I'm sure glad I did. And if anyone wants to buy a stock Bridgstone 150/80-16 with about 8,000 miles left in it, I'll sell it cheap!! I'm having a hard time imagining ever putting that stock size on this bike again.

 

I'll let y'all know how I like the Avon Venoms in general after I get back from two weeks in the Ozarks! Good luck,

Goose

[Gained]

Also saved for my info are these comments by Goose & other unknowns (I didn't save all the thread names... sorry). Hope it's okay I'm inserting these, but the info is still valuable & may save some rewriting for future searchers. EDB

 

It is possible to get confused with all the tire options that some companies have. You need to make sure you get a front tire for the front, and a rear tire for the rear. In addition, you need to pay attention to size, weight and speed ratings. Beyond those potentially life altering items, you also have options for black wall, narrow white wall, and wide white wall. To make matters worse, there are at least three different types of specifications commonly used for tire sizes today, so you may need a conversion table if you cannot find the tire you want sold with the same type of size specification you are used to using! That is why my front tire is an MT90 instead of a 130/90. Here are the exact tires on my bike today:

Front Avon Venom-X AM41 MT90B16 74H

Rear Avon Venom-X AM42 150/90B15 80H

(All AM41s are front tires, and AM42s are rear tires.)

 

I ordered my tires from Southwest Moto Tires in Tucson AZ, and I highly recommend them. Wherever you buy them, you are gonna want to deal with someone who turns tires over fairly fast so you don't get old stock stuff where the rubber has started to change with age. If you buy form a local place where you can see the tires, always verify the manufacture date code on each tire - you really want something within the last six months, but certainly not older than a year.

 

I have seen some comments in the past several months that Avon has dropped the "X" from the Venom designation, and from their web site, this appears to be true. Your best source for verifying available tire sizes and designations is the manufacturer's web site. The Avon tire site is:

http://www.avonmotorcycle.com/us/en/...CruiserTouring

Hope that helps!

 

Next, TFD69 . . .

I don't think the type of riding has too much bearing on the choice of tire size and styles (for handling questions ONLY - it certainly would for speed and load ratings). Frankly, I want my bike to handle the best it can no matter where I am riding, and these Avon's on my bike are an order of magnitude improvement over the crap Yamaha shoveled at us when we bought the bike new!! I personally believe they stuck that fat front tire on there for nothing but style, with absolutely no concern for the riding experience. Of course, I went straight from the fat ugly Brickstone to the MT90 Avon, so I cannot say for certain how much of the change I experienced is due to the better Avon tire or the narrower size, but I do attribute much of it to the size.

 

I ride my bike every day - that's how I got 19,000 miles in a bit over 1 year. City, highway, solo, two up, long distance touring, commute to work, shopping, etc. I do NOT think the wider front tire is better at touring long distances at highway speeds. It is true that the narrower front tire makes a more dramatic improvement at low speeds, but it also greatly improves the handling in curves. The feel of the bike at highway speeds is now much more of being "one with the bike" that just sitting on a bike and trying to control it. The bike is much more responsive to shifting body weight and leaning than it was with stock size. And besides, no matter how long and far you ride on the super-slab, you are still gonna have to slow down and turn off the road some time!

 

In short, I do not feel the narrower front tire is a compromise in any way. Best of luck to all of you. I hope you are as pleased with whatever skins you mount as I have been

 

 

 

Guys,

 

Goose has hit every argument right on the head in changing from a 150/80 to a 130/90 front tire on the RS Venture. So if you don't mind, I'd like to provide my history on this change. And I don't know if I was the first to make this change because I didn't get a RSV until August of 2000. In fact I was basically forced into a new Venture because I totaled my 93 on a great road south of Mountain Home, Arkansas called Push Mountain Road. At that point in my riding career, Linda and I were ready for a new Venture because I was getting tired of working on an aging bike. (flame off, my 1st gen friends)

 

But soon after getting a new Venture we took it to Arkansas for a long weekend ride and I was never so disappointed in all my life of how it handled, compared to the handling of my 5-1st gen Ventures. That big fat Brigstone 150 front tire just wallowed terrible in the corners and was a beast making a tight U turn. And long before they were worn out, I started looking at my options for a tire change and a set of Dunlop Elite IIs were on my list. Of course everyone was telling me that Dunlop didn't make a set of Elite IIs for the RSV, which I said "Bunk". So I made up my own sizing and ordered a set of Elite IIs, a MV85-15 (150/85) rear and a MT90-16 (130/90) front. There was nothing anyone could say to convince me that this bike needed a 150 wide front tire. I was in the shop when my mechanic mounted the front one and he took one look at me and said he didn't think it would mount up, where I said lets try anyway. Well it popped on like it was made for that rim and just looked right when I put it on the bike. And when I took it out for a spin and hit a few curves, I knew I had found the right tire combination. And when I went back to the Arkansas Ozarks it was a pleasure to ride this bike. Of course I talked all of my RSV friends into changing theirs out and even a few that were riding Kawasaki Nomads who were also running 150/90s on the front. I think our manufactures think just because their bikes are cruisers, they need a fat front tire.....but a 150 when our 1st gen Ventures ran a 120? Go figure?

 

Anyway since the Fall of 2000 I have put over 100k on this combination of tires on 2 bikes, first Dunlop Elite IIs, Metzler 880s, and just recently the Avon Venoms.

[Guest shoveldog]

I just got back from bike nite in Sharon PA and now have about 125 miles on the new Venoms I installed last night. I did the one size smaller on the front. The bike feels dramatically different. The Avons are everything you guys said they'd be! I ran into an '05 Venture owner and another '05 RSTD owner, both of whom will be needing tires soon. I hope I converted them for their sakes.

[Carbon_One]

I'm another convert to the Avon tires and smaller MT90 up front. What the guys have said in the past are all true. Great handling and ride, especially in turns and slow speed manuvering.

Got about 2 k on mine so far and couldn't be happier with them. I had the Dunlop D404's as oem tires and while they were OK the Avon's just beat these all out in ride quality IMO.

Larry

[venturejockey]

Any pictures out there on an RSV or RSTD?

[Tartan Terror]

I only have one concern. On other bikes that I had with the narower front tire the bike would catch a groove in the road or a join in the concrete and would make it hard to handle. My RSV is much better with the larger front tire thatn the other bikes will the narrower front tire make it more or less difficult to get out of those groove. I just figured the larger tire kind of bridged the groove and didnt so much fall into it.

[Sleeperhawk]

I only have one concern. On other bikes that I had with the narower front tire the bike would catch a groove in the road or a join in the concrete and would make it hard to handle. My RSV is much better with the larger front tire thatn the other bikes will the narrower front tire make it more or less difficult to get out of those groove. I just figured the larger tire kind of bridged the groove and didnt so much fall into it.

 

Been over some pretty groovy roads since I put the smaller front tire on a couple weeks ago. I cannot tell any difference going over the same roads, but definitly in the curves the bike is much easier to handle.

[Black Ice]

Well yes I love my Avons too. The smaller front definitely makes the bike feel lighter. Another thing I love about them is that they don't howl like those bleeping Bridgestones did. Very quiet. Very Happy!

Gary B

[V7Goose]

I only have one concern. On other bikes that I had with the narrower front tire the bike would catch a groove in the road or a join in the concrete and would make it hard to handle. My RSV is much better with the larger front tire thatn the other bikes will the narrower front tire make it more or less difficult to get out of those groove. I just figured the larger tire kind of bridged the groove and didnt so much fall into it.

Tartan, I agree that logically, what you describe makes sense, but I have found the reality to be quite different. First, even tho the MT90 is technically a narrower tire than the 150/80, it isn't that MUCH narrower. An MT90 is still a big fat tire compared to what most bikes are running up front.

 

Secondly, I have NEVER owned a bike that tracked grooves and ridges as bad as my RSV did with the stock Brickstones! Holding that thing steady on the roads I ride every day was a nightmare. It seemed to have a mind of its own, and that vacant mind wanted to explore every single imperfection of the road surface, no matter how small! When I mounted the new Avon Venoms, this tracking TOTALLY vanished. I even found myself steering to every groove or rut I could find just to keep proving to myself that it wouldn't track them any more.

 

Now, here is some new information that I haven't really posted yet, as I am in the middle of an unplanned experiment. As the Avons wore down, some of this tendency to track grooves began to come back, but never to the horrible level it had been with the Brickstones. At 14,000 miles on the Avon rear tire, it had a spot that wore dangerously thin due to running with incorrect balance, so I had to remove it before I had ordered replacement tires. Well, I ride every day, and I wasn't about to let it sit alone in the garage while I caged it waiting for the new skins, so I decided to slap on the old Brickstone I still had sitting around for just such an emergency. What a rude awakening!!

 

My front Avon has 15,000 miles on it now, but still has lots of tread and a nice round profile (no center flattening). As I stated above, the bike had been exhibiting more groove tracking as the Avons wore down, and it just seemed natural for me to assume that this tendency to track the imperfections of the road was directly caused by the front tire; after all, the front tire is connected to the handlebars, right? And the handle bars is where you most feel this tracking. Now I don't think so.

 

As soon as I put that old Brickstone back on the rear (Avon Venom still on the front), the danged bike went loco tracking road imperfections again!!! Surprised the snot out of me! That rear Brickstone (which is quite flat, by the way), is directly causing this bike to act like is is having an epileptic seizure any time it encounters significant ridges or grooves. They are doing a lot of road work on the freeway I ride to work every day where they grind off the top surface and then lay a new layer of asphalt, and this leaves many short sections where the grinding wheels cut a little deeper than the pass they made next to it, This bike is downright SCARY on those spots now, where it was only a minor irritant before, even with the worn-out Avon on the rear.

 

I'm going to mount the new Avon on the rear this Sunday and ride the bike for a while with the existing Avon front tire (15,000 miles on it) and the new Avon rear. I'll let y'all know how that affects the tracking. After a few weeks, I'm gonna make a sacrifice for the sake of science and all my buddies here and pull off the Avon front tire and re-mount the old Brickstone 150/80! God how I hate the thought of doing this, but I just have to know much that front tire alone will change the handling of the bike with a new Avon Venom on the rear. Watch this site for new info as it develops!

Goose

[Snarley Bill]

I only have one concern. On other bikes that I had with the narower front tire the bike would catch a groove in the road or a join in the concrete and would make it hard to handle. My RSV is much better with the larger front tire thatn the other bikes will the narrower front tire make it more or less difficult to get out of those groove. I just figured the larger tire kind of bridged the groove and didnt so much fall into it.

road my bike to vogel and back hit the twisties to the limit.road wet roads.no adverse affects what so ever.go for them you'll like them.the narrow front tire makes the steering more sensitive.did notice a little wallowing when pushing it in the twisties,but for a bike exceeding 900 lbs., i was impressed.bill

[Tartan Terror]

Wow that is some interesting info. Im not ready for tires yet, Just getting my new rear shock in next week and the new links so we will start there but the tire info is almost opposite than what I thought it would be. Few more miles and then on to the Avons I think. Got the Dunlops right now and they arent bad.

[Obber]

Here is another site for tires. They don't have free shipping but depending on how close you are to them, with shipping, it might be cheaper.

[venturejockey]

You guys that are mounting your own what are you using. Tire irons? Tire changer? I've used both but don't have either at this time. Also what method are you using to ballance them? What kind of balance weights? The adheasive type or that old fashioned clamp on type? Have you been replacing the valve stims as well?

 

Eric

[V7Goose]

I use the Harbor Freight manual tire changer. Self-stick weights from JC Whitney. Put the axle in the wheel and set the ends on two jack stands. I'll probably use the same valve stem until I die.

Goose

[venturejockey]

I use the Harbor Freight manual tire changer. Self-stick weights from JC Whitney. Put the axle in the wheel and set the ends on two jack stands. I'll probably use the same valve stem until I die.

Goose

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Do you have the Harbor Freight motorcycle attachment for the tire changer? I'm thinking about one of these cause the tire changer is not too much more expensive as two tire irons and a bead breaker.

 

Eric

[RoadKill]

I only have one concern. On other bikes that I had with the narower front tire the bike would catch a groove in the road or a join in the concrete and would make it hard to handle. My RSV is much better with the larger front tire thatn the other bikes will the narrower front tire make it more or less difficult to get out of those groove. I just figured the larger tire kind of bridged the groove and didnt so much fall into it.

 

I had the Dunlop 404, I think their called on my 2003 when I purchased it used. It was squirrly as all get out on grated bridges, grooved roads. tar snakes, since going with the Avon (smaller front stock rear), that has almost entirely disappeared. I have 5000 miles on mine and they don't even look worn yet.

[V7Goose]

Thanks for the reply.

 

Do you have the Harbor Freight motorcycle attachment for the tire changer? I'm thinking about one of these cause the tire changer is not too much more expensive as two tire irons and a bead breaker.

 

Eric

Hey Eric,

Yes, I have the motorcycle adapter - I don't see any way to use it without this. Point to remember: When you get it, it seems they all come with the rim clamps installed backward! You will have to pull them off and turn them around. Our rear wheel just barely fits in this thing, with the brake disk sitting right down on the support arm (or within a hair's width of it). This is not a problem, since the clamps hold everything in place and prevent any twisting or pressure on the disk. I only mention it because I initially thought it would not fit!

Goose

[venturejockey]

Thanks Goose.

[V7Goose]

I'm going to mount the new Avon on the rear this Sunday and ride the bike for a while with the existing Avon front tire (15,000 miles on it) and the new Avon rear. I'll let y'all know how that affects the tracking. After a few weeks, I'm gonna make a sacrifice for the sake of science and all my buddies here and pull off the Avon front tire and re-mount the old Brickstone 150/80! God how I hate the thought of doing this, but I just have to know much that front tire alone will change the handling of the bike with a new Avon Venom on the rear. Watch this site for new info as it develops!

Goose

Here's an update on my tire experiments and how the RSV handling has been affected:

 

Very brief background - for all the details, see the beginning of this thread and another one by me titled "Tire Talk - ":

• I hated the handling with stock Brickstone tires, and it got really bad as the rear tire wore out.
  
• I bought new Avon Venoms with an MT90 front size at 8,000 miles and RAVED about the improved performance.
  
• After running about 4,000 miles on the Avons with everything else stock, I switched to shorter suspension links to raise the rear of the bike. I did not notice the dramatic handling change from the links that others had reported.
  
• My rear Avon wore out at 14,000 miles - while waiting on a new tire, I mounted my old Brickstone rear for a week or two. The bike hated that tire so much I thought it was trying to kill me! Turned out that the worn Brickstone rear tire had more bad impact on RSV handling than the front tire.
  
• I put new Avon rear tire on and all was right with the world again.
  
• As the front tire continued to wear down, I noticed some increased squirreliness in the handling. About the same time, others here were commenting on the same thing. I guessed that maybe this was coming from a combination of the raised rear, narrower front tire, and worn front tire profile.

Back to today - my front Avon was toast at 20,000 miles. True to my promise a few months ago (see quote above), I mounted the original Brickstone front tire last night (only 8,000 miles on it and it still had lots of tread). Initial report is the bike is handling fine today. So again it seems that all of the nasty bad handling problems I remember from the stock Brickstones were related to the rear tire much more than the front. I also noticed that the worn out tire I took off the front was considerably smaller in diameter than the old Brickstone due to lack of tread. What made this evident is that I could not roll the Brickstone under the fender without raising the bike quite a bit higher.

 

More importantly, however, is the fact that the bike did NOT revert to the real heavy handling at slow speed that it had with the stock tires. I attribute this completely to the fact that I now have the shorter suspension links.

 

Right now, my bike has an Avon Venom on the rear that only has about 4,000 miles on it and the stock Brickstone front tire that I took off 20,000 miles ago. When combined with the raised rear end, my initial impression is that the poor slow speed handling caused by the overly wide front tire is negated by the reduced trail from raising the rear of the bike.

 

My conclusions are that the handling characteristics of the RSV can be dramatically improved by EITHER changing to the MT90 or 130/90 front tire OR raising the rear of the bike.

 

I believe that doing BOTH changes (narrower front tire and the higher rear) is not optimal. Although I did not initially feel that the handling was bad after adding the shorter suspension links, I did notice it get worse as the front tire wore down. I think that this made the front even lower, which combined with the narrow tire made the handling just too quick for such a big bike.

 

My recommendations: If you have long legs and want the higher seat height, change out the suspension links to DiamondR's Leveling Links and keep a stock front tire size.

 

If you want to keep the rear of the bike at the same or lower height as stock, definitely change your front tire to the MT90 or 130/90 size.

 

Finally, no matter what you do, select a better brand of tire than the Brickstones. This alone will provide a lot of improvement! I have measured the actual width of the 150/80-16 front tire in all the major tire brands, and the stock Brickstone is about 1/2" wider that the stock size in other brands. This means that just buying a different brand of tires will actually give you a slightly narrower front tire even if you stay with the stock size. Good luck, and safe riding,

Goose

[Squidley]

Thanks for the followup Goose

 

I have had the same descrepancies with my '99 as the bike has gotten squirrely now that the rear tire is shot. I figure I got about what you did as far as mileage 13K and I'm just going to replace both tires at the same time.

 

Lonna and I did a 10K trip this summer with the smaller front tire and I will stay with it upon buying a new set. I am totally impressed with the Avons and have mentioned that until there is something better, I will buy nothing else

[Yammer Dan]

Igot a little less than 6k out of the Avon on the rear. Yep less than 6 thousand miles. But I think I know why. They were the best feeling tires I have ever rode and that includes a few. Going to slow down and see if I can get 10 k out of a rear tire!!!

[RickH]

Ahhhh Just a note here.

 

At least with the Avon the diameter of the stock size150/80HB-16 and the smaller width size MT90-16 both have a diameter of 25.100"

 

 

FYI

[V7Goose]

Ahhhh Just a note here.

 

At least with the Avon the diameter of the stock size150/80HB-16 and the smaller width size MT90-16 both have a diameter of 25.100"

 

 

FYI

Absolutely correct, but I am not sure what point you were getting at. The MT90 improves the low speed performance because it is narrower with a more rounded profile, not because it changes the trail by being shorter (which is is not, as you point out). I referred to my worn out MT90 as being shorter because the diameter of the tire will shrink as the thickness of the tread is worn away. This will obviously be a very small change (probably 1/4" max), but a change nonetheless. More importantly, I was contrasting the worn out Avon MT90 to the old Brickstone 150/80 with lots of tread left on it. I had to raise the front of the bike between 1/2" and 1" more to get the Brickstone under the fender.

 

The handling characteristics of the bike can be changed by either changing the steering geometry or changing the tire size/profile. If you make both changes, the effects can be multiplied even though only one of them changes the trail measurement. Based on my own experiences and the reports of others, it seems that whichever change is done FIRST (either the links or the narrower front tire) is the change that the rider most dramatically feels. In my case I did the tire first, and the improvement was dramatic, then when I added the links later, the handling did not seem to change that much. Others have reported dramatic improvement just from changing the links while still riding on the stock front tire. Now that I have the links on and went back to the stock front tire and the handling did not get ponderous again, I conclude that the links alone on my bike are making as big an improvement as I originally found from the MT90 tire alone. Hence, my suggestion that only one of those changes should be made, not both.

 

Your point about the measurements of the Avon tires specifically, as opposed to assuming it applied to all tires is well taken. Way back BC I had done some research on published nominal measurements from each tire manufacturer on both their 150/80 and 130/90 front tire sizes and stock rear tire sizes. I shared that information on this site. I do not remember the specifics for any particular brands (other than the Brickstone 150/80 was the widest of all by far), but I did find that two different brands have a significantly smaller diameter in their front tires compared to their rear. The point here is that by comparing published tire sizes and choosing based on that information, you can actually change the front/rear height and thereby the trail of the steering geometry without modifying the bike itself. I think the maximum difference I found comparing other brands to the stock Brickstones was about 3/4", which is almost as much as you get from the Leveling Links. The bottom line is that just because two different brands of tires are stamped 150/80-16 does NOT mean they are the same size - they are usually close, but not identical.

Goose

[RickH]

Goose:

Maybe it was me but in your other post it read like you were stating the thinner Avon was smaller and was really changing the rake which some may assume it is and not really understanding what is really happening here by using the other size. A lot of others state it is smaller when it's really thinner tire.

 

Now by raising the rear you are changing the rake. Good or bad I have no opinion on that adjustment. I would have to spend alot of time both ways to form one.