PRoductreviews Metzeler’s new Roadtec 01 By Ray Tubbs #58606
PASSION ISN'T A WORD THAT USU- ally comes to mind when the topic of tires comes up. Even for us
two-
wheeled fanatics it usually comes down to round, black and (hopefully) full of air. Yet passion is what kept coming to mind when I was sitting across the table from Metzeler R & D Director Piero Misani in Frankfurt, Germany. It was the last night of the Metzeler Roadtec 01 preview, and though the discussion fluctuated from factories across the globe to creating tread compounds and even to the Isle of Man, the look in Peiro’s eyes carried the weight of a man driven by passion. Metzeler has concentrated solely on
motorcycle tires since 1979 and has long been a company of firsts. They claim the first tubeless tire, the first mass-produced Kevlar belt and the first zero-degree steel-belted radial motorcycle tire; their history is one of innovation. While the Roadtec 01 may not be included on any list of firsts just yet, the Z8 it replaces was a sport/ touring segment leader and five-time road test winner. Given that Metzeler calculates that 30 percent of the motorcycle tire market is geared toward sport touring tires, the Road- tec 01 represents a significant invest- ment as well as an obviously important model for Metzeler, given the risks at stake. Part of those expectations could be
seen in the benchmarks set by the fac- tory for their new sport touring mar- vel: 5 percent larger contact patch, 10 percent increase in mileage, and enhanced grip on dry, wet and low friction surfaces. Metzeler accom- plishes this through a full silica com- pound front tire designed to increase wet weather traction. The varying demands of a rear tire dictated that the silica compound cover 80 percent
30 BMW OWNERS NEWS August 2016
of the rear; it is also applied to 40 percent of the tread away from the center. This effec- tively creates a single compound center similar to a "slick" center area and is designed to both promote high speed sta- bility and increase mileage. Once leaned over, the silica-based side compounds increase traction in other than ideal condi- tions. While tire compounds usually garner a larger share of the conversation at any tire intro, Metzeler states their biggest gains in meeting the engineering parameters came from tread design. A new rear tread design dubbed "Drops" and "Sabers" goes a long way towards visually explaining these improvements. Metzeler’s investment was clearly seen
when we visited the state-of-the-art factory in Breuberg. It wasn’t the kind of gritty, grim, smoky factory we normally see repre- sented so well in television and movies, but a clean, organized, and automated facility with illumination reaching every corner. While no visitors were allowed to take pho- tos for security purposes, the tour provided key details to the manufacturing process. Metzeler’s factory is fully automated; though they employ a small staff, those staff members are highly involved in the manu- facturing process. They use steel molds, rather than aluminum alloy, to maintain long-term tread pattern integrity in the manufacturing process. But the primary benefit from all these automated innova- tions is extremely uniform tire consistency, which reduces the need for counterweights other than those for weight variances in the wheel and brake discs. Maybe jet lag had me exhausted at that point in the day, but I took the subject of tire manufacturing for granted until I saw the maze of pasta machine-like strands of precisely formu- lated rubber compounds being fed into exactly the right machines at exactly the right moment. The second day of the focused visit was the one I most looked forward to (and most
relevant to any reviewer): the track day! I was curious to learn how the tires per- formed on the road as well. Given a large selection of street bikes to
choose from, I somehow ended up on a 2015 R 1200 GS. Given that I’ve ridden over 100,000 miles on various Gelände/Straßen of my own, I had a baseline of what to expect. My hopes were that this would let me focus solely on the tires and not the quirks of an unfamiliar motorcycle. All one has to do is imagine every stereo-
type of quaint German towns to conjure up the scenery on our on our routes planned by Metzler. Riding ranged from small towns with rough, well-used streets to broad sweepers through farm country on new pavement, with a good number of asphalt patches and changes in material thrown in. As the temperatures started in the 40 degree range that day, I expected the Metzeler hired guns leading my group to start off slowly. I was mistaken. Hitting the open roads with our group of
10 following, our hosts made quick work of the German landscape. The only conces- sions made were in the tiny towns criss- crossing the route, where we were held to strict (and suitably slow) speeds. The vari- ety of surfaces we encountered caused no slips, no slides and no shudders, even in the cool temperature and when crossing farm roads littered with the recent evidence of livestock. The second part of the riding day started
with my small group on a wide variety of test tracks at the Bosch Proving Grounds in Boxberg. The Bosch track is a multi-disci- pline facility leased to various clients for their testing, and our focus there was using the wet and dry skid pads as well as their wet and dry road course and half-mile oval. The proving grounds themselves contain other testing areas, such as a rough road track, hill management, noise measuring and a water fording point. The facility itself was impressive in scope as well; we observed
member tested
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