Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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A few years ago, I "ad the chance to dll the company's then-new Azaro range at the Spring Mountain Park (a.k.a. Pahrump) in a. At the end of the day, I Impressed, especially considering that their AV45/AV46 Sport Touring ~ as good as some other compa"sport" tires. The Viper range of Sportbike tires was introduced to the European press at a separate launch in the spring of this year, but for marketing and distribution reasons. the tire's U.S. unveiling was held off until now. This time around, instead of heading to the high desert outside of Las Vegas, we were heading to Wales and the Pembrey Circuit on the west coast of Great Britain. Let's put it this way: When I was packing for my trip, I made damn sure that I packed my rain gear. The chance of it not raining in Wales in September was about as likely as Prince Charles (a.k.a. the Prince of Wales) and Camilla Parker Bowles (a.k.a. the Duchess of Cornwall) not attracting paparazzi on their honeymoon. As predicted, the entire two-hour drive to the Pembrey Circuit was through driving rain. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a wet but interesting-looking track. It kind of reminded me of Pahrump - a lonely little track in the middle of nowhere. But Avon R&D guy and chief test rider Pete Wilson (a Canadian nonetheless) assured us that it was a fun and informative track. We took to the track on a variety of motorcycles fitted with two out of three of the new tires, the Sport and the Supersport. The Viper Extreme is not yet available for evaluation, but a set should be In our hands by spring. The bikes ranged from stock 600s from a Yamaha R6, Honda CBR600RR, Kawasaki ZX-6R (636) and a Suzuki GSX-R600 to a Kawasaki ZX-I OR and a CBR IOOORR fitted with an afternnarket pipe. Most of the bikes listed above were fitted with the Supersport version of the Viper, while the Viper Sport was fitted to a naked Yamaha FZ-6 and a Trillmph Daytona 650. The Pembrey Circuit proved good test track because it has a nice bination of slow hairpins, fast S'N and hard-braking zones. Adding to the nature of the track was Mother Nature herself, who produced a combination of conditions from completely wet to completely dry and everything in between. My first couple of sessions were in wet but drying conditions. Not only did the tires prove more than capable in the conditions, they were quite impressive. The tire's Enhanced Aqua Flow (EAF) tread pattern was more than capable of moving water out of the way of the contact patch. Despite the fact that it was raining out, it was fairly warm, and the tires seemed to jump up to temperature very qUickly. Other than a few instances where I crossed a paint line or track seam, or got ham-fisted, I didn't have any slides or loss of traction that were out of the ordinary. As this is an English tire, you can rest assured that wet-weather handling was a huge consideration during development. Avon introduced a new Si02-HD silica formulation for the Viper range, which was created to improve wet-weather grip and improve warmup times. Mission accom- plished. In mixed conditions (half-wet/half dry-track) - crossing in and out of wet patches - a change in grip level was hardly noticeable at all. As the track dried out and the speeds increased, my overall impression of the tires started to take shape. It's always hard to judge a tire based purely on one test on one track, but the variety of bikes, variety of conditions and nature of the track gave me more than enough information to vouch for the Viper range of tires. Both the Supersport, with what Avon calls the Race-C compound (the more track-oriented of the two, which I spent the most time on), and the Sport provided crisp turn-in, with a smooth transition from upright to full lean, aided by a neutral-profile front tire. One of the keys to the new Viper range is the new Advanced Tread Arc Combination (ATAC) technology, which varies the tread profile across the tire for PRICING Viper Sport MSRP ranges: AV59 Viper Sport (front) Street $131 to $148 Available sizes: 1I0/70ZR 17, I20/60ZRI 7, 120/65ZR17, 120/70ZR17, 120/70ZRI7B,130/70ZRI6 AV60 Viper Sport (rear) Street $1 80 to $236 Available sizes: 150/60ZRI7. 160/60ZR17, 170/60ZRI7,180/55ZRI7, 190/50ZR17, 190/50ZRI7B,200/50ZRI7 Viper Supersport MSRP ranges: AV59 Viper Supersport (front) Ultra Street/Track $138 to $159 Available sizes: 120/60ZR 17, 120/70ZR 17 AV60 Viper SuperSport (rear) Ultra Street/Track $194 to $229 Available sizes: 160/60ZR 17, I80/S5ZR 17, 190/50ZR 17 For more information, go to www.avonmotorcycle.com optimal handling and stability at any lean angle, while also giving a better footprint under braking. The Viper rear tires feature AdvancedVariable Belt Density (A-VBD) technology. The jointless belts of Aramid fibers wrapped around the tire's circumference vary in density, and are denser toward the center of the tire and more spaced out toward the edge. In this way, the engineers can fine-tune not only the wear resistance, but the way the tire's footprint contacts the road. This also affects how the rubber compound reacts on the tire, allowing a single compound to act as many, depending on the density of the belts below. In the completely dry conditions, the Supersport proved to be an excellent tire and would make a great track-day choice in the same category as a Pirelli Diablo or Michelin Pilot Power. The Viper Supersport provided nice turn-in and was perfectly willing to be trail-braked all the way to the apex. Under heavy braking for Pembrey's turn-one, first-gear hairpin, every bike I rode proved to be stable and composed, and offered plenty of feedback. When heeled over at maximum lean angle, the tire was predictable and stable, and offered good grip from the edge of the tire even toward the end of the day while getting back on the throttle. So how did the tires work on the big bikes? Just fine. I spent some time on the ZX-IOR and was impressed. I waited for the track to dry out before I ventured out on it, but was impressed with the rear tire's level of grip on the horsepower monster. The same goes for the handling, which was very neutral and stable in all up until that point. After a few tentative laps, I realized that the Sport handled almost identically to the Supersport, and warmed up just as qUickly. Despite offering slightly less grip at racetrack speeds, the Sport should make a great street tire that will most certainly offer better mileage than the Supersport. Spending so much time on the Supersport only added to my curiosity about the Viper Xtreme, which, as I mentioned, wasn't available for testing. If the jump in performance between the Supersport and Xtreme is similar to the jump between the Sport and Supersport, it will make an excellent track-day tire - and d~re I say club-level race tire!? We'll see if my prediction pans out once Avon sends us a set to test in the spring. In the meantime, Avon has created a pair of impressive tires for the weekend canyon carver and the consumer who likes to spend his weekends ripping around eN at a track. conditions. At the end of the day, I finally decided it was time to spend some more time on the Viper Sport, which I had kind of ignored This is what the Viper Supersport looked like ofter five 20-minute sessions on the track - not bad. OCTOBER 26, 2005