Front tyre size upgrade dilemma

[Guest]

So my front tyre is now 10,300 miles and still has another 2K miles before the "wear bars/blocks" get exposed, but either way it needs replacing ASAP as it looks squared off. It's a Michelin Pilot Street (best tyre ever made![emoji108] ) ... The Standard set up is 100/80/17. For next upgrade I need to go wider, which is 110/80/17 .... Here is the catch...

If I go with 110/80/17 (10 wider) - There is NO Pilot Street or even Road 4 in that size [emoji22] .... Except "Pilot Activ" (Not sure if that's a *budget* tyre ??)

If I go with 110/70/17 - There is "Pilot Street Radial, Road 2, 3 & 4, Pilot Street (non-radial)" -> BUT will my speedo under read or over read? (ie. if I'm riding 30mph, will it say 32mph or 28mph? [emoji53] )

The bike's manual suggests that I should change to 100/80/17 or bigger 110/80/17 (notice it's always *xxx/80/17*) , and everyone would say "Only go 1cm up above the manufacturer's standard set"

What If i go for 120/70/17 ? - (That's 2cm over,) - How bad is just for the front ? In terms of speedo reading & generally stability ?[emoji53]

Budget is no issue, I want the most expensive & most wet-gripping tyre to last me another 10K miles.

(& yes... it has to be a Michelin tyre [emoji40] - Not really keen on trying other brand names regardless [emoji6] )

[Guest]

why do you 'need' to go wider?

Personally i don't see any dilemma. if the current tyre has been as good as you say and is in your opinion the best tyre ever made. put another one on.

[Guest]

why do you 'need' to go wider?

Personally i don't see any dilemma. if the current tyre has been as good as you say and is in your opinion the best tyre ever made. put another one on.

Its because the rear was recently upgraded to a wider one. The owners book say the 'pro' version of the bike came with wider tyres. Mine had stock sizes ; so why not upgrade them!

Wouldnt it be better to have wider tyre if it means;

- stable at a same psi? (Comfy ride?)

- better handling round the bends?

My dilemmas are the 3 sizes mentioned above & the choices of tyres presented by that particular brand.

I could go for Bridgestone Battlax T30F or Pirelli GT Sport Touring but they only make them in size 120 ...

[Marky]

There's loads of websites that can do the calculations, but the first I picked was Tire Size Conversion. (Note: there's a bug in their code that means it won't work with a tyre that is 100 or less in width. So I used 101/80/17 as the starting size.) That site will compare tyre sizes and even tell you how much a speedo will be out.

A 110/70/17 tires is 1.4% smaller in circumference (will read 69 mph at 70 mph) and a 120/70/17 is 1% larger (so 71 mph at 70 mph).

From a speedo point of view, there's not a lot in it. No idea about handling etc. though.