The Avon Cobra is one of the most popular cruiser & custom tyres on the market, and has been around for some years. This year it has also replaced the vast majority of the Avon Venom range, which now sees only a handful of sizes remaining.
Recently, the team at Big Bike Mad decided to dual-test the latest version, on their Rocket III and Harley V-Rod project bikes.
After race tyres, rubbers for cruisers are one of the most difficult to design, by why?
- Most of the weight is over the rear of the bike.
- They have limited ground clearance.
- The rider’s body position makes it more difficult to make refined control inputs.
- Cruisers tend to be ridden on straighter roads, and at reduced lean angles, making them more prone to ‘squaring off’.
To combat these issues, the Avon Cobra has a well-rounded profile, which enables it to transition from side to side more easily. This helps to reduce the ‘slow steering’ effect that wider rubber often has.
The Cobra also features a strong carcass created using multiple aramid belts to deal with the additional loads they are going to carry. More belts are used in the centre of the tyre, making it more rigid, and reducing wear when upright. Using fewer belts on the edges of the tyre make it softer and more able to deform when the bike is leaned over.
Avon have abandoned the traditional solid central groove often found on cruiser rubber, as this can make them more prone to following white lines. Instead, they have opten for a more chevron like tread pattern, which offers more agile handling. Deeper tread grooves also allow for a softer compound to be used, offering increased grip.
The first thing that the Big Bike Mad test riders noticed was the quicker turn in offered by the Avon Cobra, when compared with the Dunlop and Metzeler tyres that had just been removed. They also felt that straight line stability was improved, especially on the Dunlop shod V-Rod. Although the Avon’s didn’t make it perfect, the verdict was that it was much better.
So how did they deal with the enormous power of the two test bikes?
Bike Big Mad say: “Traction was excellent – with enormous grip making it hard to spin the rear, even on the mighty rocket. Transiting in and out of a corner, from upright-to-lean-to-upright again was a real joy. The change was more rapid and yet smoother and more controllable too. It’s no understatement to say that on both bikes handling was transformed. In particular there was no longer a turn-in lag on the huge 240 Rocket rear, probably due to the highly curved profile. Whatever input you dialed in, that’s what you got out. Confidence-inspiring.”
“Wet weather grip was superb, but not faultless. Coming out of a bend our tester hit a patch of over-banding that caused a brief fish-tail on the Triumph. Hard not to get that on any tyre though.”
“Recovery was rapid and no-one ended up in the scenery. On the Harley, lock up was possible in the wet, front or back, but again, performance was better than before and we put the issue down to the inherent handling problems of the early model V-Rod we were using.”
The test continues, although they are predicting around 5,000 miles from a rear, and 8,000 from a front on the V-Rod, with slightly lower figures on the Rocket III, and that’s often riding two up, and fast. However, the test goes on, so we’ll have to see how the Avon’s hold up against that prediction!
Check out the full Avon Cobra range.
