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/128308
Michelin pilot Power highly toxic hypersport machines . The tire will rep lace the company's current Pilot Spo rt offering. The Powe r is comp lete ly new and utilizes new technologies fresh out of t he mixer from Michelin's MotoGP research and development department. Michelin's goals were to increas e grip, increase lean-angle capability, increas e the tire's consistency, decrease the warm-up period, and last but not least, maintain similar mileage to the Sport. The key to the new Pilot Power is all in the MotoGP-de rived rubber compound, which Michelin claims is six-percent softer than its nearest competitor's. It is also quick to point out that this was accomplished without compromising the durability of the product. Rubber compounding is black magic, and with over 200 components making up the compound, t he variables are almost limit less. Hitt ing t he magic recipe is what keeps tire eng ineers up at night. Tires are made up of natural and synthetic elastomers (rubber), sulfer, reinforcing fillers (carbo n black, and silica), and a whole slew of add itives such as protection agents and vulcanizing agents . The e lastomers in the Pilot Power are the key to the tire's performance and are specially formulated synthetic materials . All elastomers have e lasticity, but Michelin's compound was created to cont rol that propensity to snap back in a controlled fashion. This phenomenon is called hyste resis - the higher the hysteresis, the better the grip will be because the tire will adhere to the road better. The rubber compound alone won't pro- ROLLINt ON BLACK MAGIC ne would think that Las Vegas would be a great place to test tires in January. But believe it o r not , the desert gets freak in' col d in t he midd le of winter - Mother Nature even had the gall to hit the city with snow flurries the week before. I think it was quite a shock for the 35 journalists fro m around the world who flew into Sin City w ith visions of hanging o ut by the sw imming po ol and sipping margaritas in the desert sun. Michelin street tires have a re putation for taking some time to get up to temperature, so the bitter cold wasn't going to help my confidence in them, or so I thought. Add itionally the las Vegas Motor , Speedway (LVMS) is a te chnical track tha t req uires a lot of trust in the leve l of grip, primarily due to a lot of paint str ipes on the surface. I'm not sure if the LVM5 was a O 36 JANUARY 28, 200 4 • goo d choice from these standpoints, but the hospitality of Freddie Spencer and his High Performance Riding Schoo l sure made the locatio n an obvious one. Before I go into detail about the new tire, I have to men tion the long list of racing royalty that was in attendance as guests of Michelin, including: four-t ime 250cc Gran d Prix World Champion Max Biaggi, two-time World Supe rbike C hampio n Colin Edwards, 2002 AMA Superb ike Cham pion Nicky Hayde n, 1993 500 cc Grand Prix World Ch amp ion Kevin Schwantz , and two-time 500 cc and onetime 250cc Gra nd Prix World C hampion Fred die Spe ncer. Joining t hem were Michelin's AMA riders Eric Bostro m, Steve Rapp and Vincent Haskovec. SOFT AND GOOEY The Pilot Power is Michelin's new sportbike tire des igned for today's breed of CYCLE NEWS vide adequate grip, so fillers such as carbon black and silica are added to improve the tire's gripping capabilities. Silica is the key to creating grip on cold surfaces. The process of mixing allof the ingredients together is a real science because a lot of the components aren't compatible. Bonding agents are added to the mixture to help facilitate the process. The mixing process is tricky because if the mixture gets too warm, it might start to vulcanize premat urely and ruin the mixture. Making up the secret com bination of ingredients are three key compound : macrom olecular co mpo ne nts (MMC), hightechno logy synt he t ic 40 t h Anniversary These are examples of some of the 200 different ingredients that make up the campasition of the new Michelin Pilot Power high-performance street tire. co mponents (HSTC) , and Michelin racing synthetic elastomers (MRSE). The Pilot Power's front and rear compounds are completely different. The fro nt is designed to offer excellent feedbac k and stab ility, w hile the rear is designed to de al with the torque of today's mode rn motors. MAKING TRACKS The tread pattern on a mod ern t ire like the Pilot Power is crucial to its perfo rmance. The grooves are inte nded for a single pur po se: getting rid of wate r. Otherw ise, all tires would be slicks for improved gr ip. There is more to the se grooves than meets the eye. First , t he groo ves