With a tread pattern akin to that found on a race wet Avon’s new top line sport touring tyre, the Spirit ST, was recently launched in Portugal to a whole host of journalists helped along by new brand ambassador Steve Parrish.
The UK contingent included Benjamin Kubas-Cronin of Fast Bikes who tested the tyres on the Portuguese roads before spending a day at Portimao circuit, and in their July issue he’s been letting readers know what he thinks of these new British made hoops:
“On a light, lithe little 100bhp naked bike, the STs really shone I thought. You could get on the gas nice and early with no worries of it stepping out, and also push the front pretty hard through fast corners. The Suzuki shone on the STs, as did a Triumph Street Triple soon after, I felt as though I could ride it as I would have done on stickier tyres, maybe not going for absolute broke, but enough to satisfy my aim of putting the ST to the sword. Edge grip is less forgiving than a proper sports tyre, harder, but with 100bhp – no problemo.
A sterner test was a Suzuki GSX-1000S, TC off, and here we finally encountered the ST’s limits. It’s a truism with tyres of this ilk, that as soon as you throw big power at them on track you’ll learn where the limit is, pronto. This isn’t a problem per se, it just defines the window you have to work within.
Once you know the limits you can carry on enjoying yourself, although there’s a caveat to this, incoming shortly. For me the ST’s limit became clear out of the uphill left-hand hairpin, where after shifting to third gear the grunt of the 1000S overcame the tyre’s grip and it gave a nice gentle slide before coming back in line. On larger bikes, that hard edge (in both feel and action) works against them to some degree.
Yet the flex built into the carcass did telegraph the incoming slide a picosecond before it happened, thereby defining the ST’s limits to me. A couple more times around, with a slide at exactly the same point, just highlighted those limit lines in bold, and then I got on with having fun.
The caveat here is switching the Suzuki’s TC back on, as now I could lean on that hard, and working in tandem with the ST I could get out faster, safer, while adding a lot more gas and, thusly, speed. Traction-control really is awesome if it’s a good system, it can add an extra dimension to tyres such as the ST. I also jumped on a KTM Super Duke with the TC off, but by this point the bike had been going nearly nonstop for four hours, and the tyres must have done over a hundred laps. The wallop of torque out of the slower turns saw the KTM slewing sideways a lot, so as far as track work is concerned this ST hoop was nearing its end. But it had been properly rinsed as it was the most popular bike there, so I can’t be too down on it.
The only other problem, if you can call it that, came on the faster, heavier bikes under heavy braking at slight lean. The speed and kinetic weight on the anchors would ever so slightly affect stability momentarily. But really, and again given what the tyre is meant for and where it sits in the range, this isn’t unexpected nor should it be held against it.
Overall I was impressed, I’m quite sure if all you ever did was road riding you could use these on any litre sportsbike (or any bike for that matter), and be perfectly happy. Sure, you could ride to, and complete a trackday, and still have fun, especially if you’re on something modern with an electronics suite, but ultimately your speed would, obviously, be compromised. But really I believe the Spirit STs will make terrific road tyres, and they’ve slickly slotted in nicely among the competition as a viable, and very effective, alternative option.”
Mot sizes are now available in the UK, and you can view the full range here.
