We don ’ t realise how good we ’ ve got it . I ’ m talking about those black , round things keeping our bikes shiny side up . Most of us barely give them a thought . Yet , tyres used to be shockingly bad . We didn ’ t know any better , but looking back it ’ s plain to see . My first experience riding on proper high performance tyres was at the end of 1993 on my fox-eye Yamaha YZF600R ( FZR600R elsewhere in the world ). The local tyre shop reckoned the Pirelli Dragon in the Corsa compound was the tyre to have - “ These things grip like shit to a blanket ” were the tyre fitter ’ s exact words . 1600km later the rear was completely worn out , but , bloody hell , they were 1600 great kilometres . Those things gripped well enough for young idiots like me to ride like hoons and explore kneedragging on anything resembling a corner . Grip was huge , life was not . I was sold . We all were ... a riding generation who went out of their way to fit a set of Corsa ’ s for summer fun .
HIGH PERFORMANCE TODAY 30 years later , I ’ m staring down the gun of the Phillip Island start-finish straight , rocketing towards the blind crest at a sniff over 280km / h . Snicking it into sixth , the BMW S1000RR I ’ m piloting is screaming like a banshee towards the ridiculously scary , impossibly fast turn one . I ’ m here to
try Pirelli ’ s latest black magic , the Diablo Supercorsa SP and SC variants – distant descendants of that once transcendent Dragon Corsa . And I ’ m hoping to hell they grip like I want them to .
SP vs SC I ’ m getting ahead of myself a little here . Pirelli ’ s Supercorsa comes in two distinct types . There ’ s the SC ’ s which are racing tyres – racetrack only performance , with a choice of compounds , suited to racers and committed trackdayers . Then there ’ s the SP , a road legal tyre which can also be used on the track for the occasional trackday , perfect for those who don ’ t want to change their tyres every time they hit the track . It features multi-compound rubber to give a grippy road and track experience , and also able to deal with a spot of rain . The SP comes as standard equipment on several high-end performance road motorcycles , including Ducati ’ s Panigale .
INSIDE THE SP Delving a little deeper inside the SP ( Sport Production ), Pirelli says everything has changed from the v3 ; the compound , the construction and the shape . It ’ s basically a sportier evolution of the v3 , which had a 4.3:1 land : sea ratio , and now has a 4.1:1 land : sea ratio . Despite there being less ‘ sea ’ area , water dispersion has been improved
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