FEATURE I 30 YEARS OF THE 0° STEEL BELT RADIAL TIRE
P102
(Top) Pirelli/Metzeler's
Executive Vice President
of Research and
Development and Cyber,
Pierangelo Misani (left)
with Pirelli/Metzeler's
Head of Global Testing
and Technical Relation,
Salvatore Pennisi—
two men that are
largely responsible
for Metzeler's ascent
over the last 30 years.
(Bottom) The processes
in constructing tires are
becoming ever more
mechanized, resulting
in a degree of accuracy
not possible with just
humans alone.
I think it's fair to say we take
tires very much for granted these
days. Tires are now so good
across the board from all the
manufacturers, be they Dunlop,
Michelin, Pirelli or Metzeler, but
this wasn't always the case.
The 1980s heralded the start
of the horsepower race from
Japan. The Suzuki GSX-R750
arrived on the scene, a few years
later it was Yamaha with the
FZR750R (OW01), and as the
engines got faster with each
passing year, the chassis needed
to be stiffer to harness the extra
performance and thus tire tech
-
nology was being left behind.
"After
the 1970s in Europe,
motorcycling really took off and
there was a huge development
of the big displacement bikes,"
says Pirelli/Metzeler's Executive
Vice President of Research and
I've carried that quote with me
wherever I've gone in this mo
-
torcycling life, so when Metzeler,
a company I've worked
closely
with over the years, asked me to
come to their factory in Hesse,
located about an hour's drive
northeast of Frankfurt to com
-
memorate a very special anniver-
sary, the answer was obvious.
YOU GOTTA
HAVE STEEL
2023 marks 30 years since Met-
zeler debuted zero-degree steel
belt technology in motorcycle
tires. And while it hasn't been
plain sailing, the introduction of
the first commercially available
zero-degree steel belted tire in
1993 signaled the beginning
of the next generation in tire
advancement and the end of
cross-ply radial tires.
