I posted not long ago and i have seen a few others posting looking for tire and gearing change advice.

I just got my baby back from the shop today, I had Micheline Pilot Powers 2ct's installed along with a Vortex/D.I.D. 525 -1/+2 conversion. All I have to say is WOW.

Micheline Pilot Powers are everything people say they are plus a handful more. You don't know what traction is until you corner on these things. They heat up extremely fast, no more than 2 or 3 minutes of riding if that. You know because you can smell a little bit of a burnt rubber smell when they get up to operating range. They are a tall tire, you feel like your sitting up a little higher and subsequently it feels like you are "diving" into corners when you go down low. They are very consistent in corners and predictable, I have had no surprises yet no matter what I do, the tire gives you really good feedback on what its doing. It was a typhoon here today, the rain never stopped.....these tires are scary how well they grip in slick conditions. You obviously can't drag knees, but I never once felt like I had to back off because of the conditions, the tires seem to move water away very efficiently considering they are a more race oriented design.

The first thing i noticed about the sprocket and chain change was a reduced feeling of weight. The bike seemed to spin up faster which I would credit to the weight cut I got going from a steel rear to a hardened aluminum sprocket. The change in low end torque was pretty noticeable, the bike pulls harder sooner and accelerates considerably quicker. You get to red line a fair bit faster with this set up than you do with the stock setup. I felt like I was burning up RPMs faster than I wanted to, but you don't realize just how tall your first three gears are. The hardest thing for me to get use to was how much faster the engine powered to red line. If you shift by listening to the engine like I do, this will throw you for a loop. It will just take time to get use to it, but all in all its an upgrade I would recommend. Be careful on the throttle until you get use to it, the bike WILL snap up and pull harder, wheelies are a joke now.

While I was waiting for my bike I was talking to one the guys that has been at the shop since the dinosaurs walked the planet. Its a small, locally owned shop, they wont bull **** you, they will tell you what they know. The guy told me that you really can't go wrong with any of the major tire manufacturers. He siad that Dunlop Qualifiers, Pirelli Diablo's and the Pilot Powers are all extremely well made and offer the best performance for the money. He said qualifiers will slip faster than the other two, but that they slip evenly and give you better warning, where as the other two will break and its over. He didn't have anything good to say about the Bridgestone Battleaxes. He also said that unless you really ride hard and knee drag, that your better off getting just Pilot Powers vs 2ct's. The 2ct's have a dual rubber compound on the edges of the tire that will give you better grip in corners, but that very few people actually ride hard enough to use that portion of the tire. Pilot Powers should in theory last a little longer than 2ct's, but who are we kidding, none of these tires last worth a **** compared to auto tires :-/