Work as part of the research and development team at a tyre manufacturer is never ending.
They are there to make sure that the company can react quickly to new challenges, and be the first to market with new technologies.
In this week’s edition of Motorcycle News, Mark Sears of Dunlop has been explaining just how far in advance their team work to keep them very much in the game.
Looking at their new RoadSmart III as an example, Dunlop need to be sure that their latest tyre works on a variety of bikes in a wide range of conditions which means a lot of pre-launch testing. Before they can even get to this stage, hours upon hours of work will have gone into computer aided designs which they may use to produce the new product.
For the new RoadSmart III, technical specs and drawings had been completed more than a year before the launch, followed by mile upon mile of testing. Data from these tests allow Dunlop to then tweak and fine tune the tyre even further to ensure it meets the demands of today’s riders.
Mark reveals that as soon as a new tyre is launched, work has usually begun on a successor. With new internal and external challenges coming along all the time, the design of a product is an process which is constantly evolving.
In total 31 months went into developing and testing the new RoadSmart III, with over 200 different compound and construction options evaluated over 746,000 miles as they worked hard on introducing new materials, tread design concepts and compounds to improve their sport touring offering.
It’s an expensive and lengthy process, and figures like these go to show that tyres are far more than just round and black.
View the full range of Dunlop RoadSmart III sizes here.
