Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128199
Pirelli Diablo Sportbike Tires By BLAKE CONNER PHOTOS By TOM RILES W hat the hell is going on around here? Two tire intros ago I wondered out loud why there have been so many of these launches this year. Then out of the depths comes another introduction, this time for the new Diablo high-performance sportbike tires from Pirelli. The Diablo is a new tire that is aimed at filling in the gap between the company's excellent Supercorsa race tires and its line of sport touring tires like the MT75 and the Sport Demon. The tire is designed to be an extremely high performance street tire, which can be flogged through the canyons and then ridden straight to the racetrack for a track day. The primary design goals were to improve dry grip, wet grip, handling and the total balance of the tire. central coast, to Buttonwillow Raceway Park for an afternoon on the racetrack. It was a BYOB (bring your own bike, not booze) affair, and I chose the new Ducati 999 that I was in the middle of doing a road test on (look elsewhere in this issue for that story). I figured that the Ducati would be the perfect bike for the track, and I really hadn't spent that much time riding the bike on any curvy roads, so it was a perfect opportunity. It was really cold out the morning we took off from our hotel, so this ON THE STREET Our first contact with the Dia blo line was on a fairly long street ride from Paso Robles, California, near the was going to be the tire's first test of the day - seeing how well it worked up to temperature. The route that was laid out for us had a little of everything, from fast sweepers to tight hairpins, from perfect new pavement to crappy chopped up stuff. It's impossible to say how a particular tire compares to others on the market without riding them back to back, but it's easy to tell if the tire is in the hunt or completely off base in terms of performance. My first impression of ·the tire was very favorable because it heated up quickly, and I felt instantly comfortable, despite the cold morning temperatures. Grip never seemed to be an issue at the speeds we were traveling. The group I was riding with was running a nice comfortable pace on the unfamiliar roads, but I was on the cautious side after my first deer sighting of the morning. After a while we hit one of the nicest sections of road that I have ridden in a while, on Highway 58. The road had the most amazing series of second-gear hairpins that I've been on in a long time, with perfectly banked grippy pavement. The road was perfect for evaluating how the tires were handling in 36 FEBRURY 5, 2003' eye I e n e vw s