Chris Branning
I personally have nothing but good things to say.
Incredible longevity, including the metzeler m9rr on my street bike.
The slicks though: good feel, good grip, quick warmup without warmers since warmers are optional on them. Slicks don’t like wet though. Lol.
They’ve also got an RR slick that requires warmers.
Jarrod Wilson
Metzeler Track Day Slicks Review: That’s gonna be a YES from me dawg.
Weather and location: Beautiful high 70s partly cloudy day at Homestead-Miami Speedway with Florida Trackdays.
Pressures: 32F/24R cold in the morning. 33F/25R cold in the afternoon.
Bike: 2017 Aprilia Tuono V4 1100 RR. No tire warmers.
Me: Mid pack A group pace on the Tuono that I ride to work on every day. Expert race pace on a legit race bike.
I’m going to compare them to the Pirelli Supercorsa TDs because I’ve ridden that tire at the same track on the same bike before.
Whereas for me, the Supercorsa TD basically behaved like a fairly soft slick, the Metzeler TD seems to act like more of an endurance style slick.
The immediate grip on a stone cold Supercorsa is pretty crazy, you can put your knee down negotiating the turn out of hot pit. The Metzeler is good, but it’s not that good. I was helping some guys out on race bikes who were on real slicks and warmers and they went straight to their slow A group pace right on the out lap. I stayed with them running :38/:39 pace on the completely cold Metzelers. It was possible, but it wasn’t fun. There was a lot of movement.
Once up to temp the outright grip and feel were very similar to the Pirelli TDs. Not quite as squishy in feel, but the same confidence to carry the front brake leaned well into the turns. Hammering on the rear in Race Mode with TC set to 1 provoked more wheelies than TC activation and excellent drive.
Here’s the big difference that I noticed between the two tires. I get 6 good sessions out of a Supercorsa TD rear at Homestead. The treads are gone by the seventh session and the grip has fallen off dramatically. I think I could probably get another full day of 7 sessions out of the Metzeler TD slick rear. I certainly didn’t experience the same drop-off over one track day that I do with the Supercorsas. Huge difference in longevity.
I purchased my Metzelers through Moto Garage Racing and the total came to $351.61 after shipping.
Cycle News Magazine Review
Cycle News Magazine Review
En Qing Huo
Read about these Metzeler TD slicks on here and ordered a set to try. I’ve been running Dunlop Q4s and Pirelli TDs and am overall a fan of “TD” tires- good grip, lazy on the warmers, but short life (at Jennings at least).
I paid 308 for the 120/70 & 200/55 set excluding shipping from Moto Garage. Mounted on a R1. Slow advanced pace mid 20s at Jennings.
It was 40°F the first session in the morning so I figured this is a great real world “no warmers required” test. Referred to the pressure chart and started with 30/22 cold. I gave it three warmup laps just to be safe and I could feel the tires warm up and build grip every lap. Eventually I found I could start pushing about 1.5-2 laps in but before that they definitely were not confidence inspiring. End of first session pressures- 32.5/28 hot.. the front wear was fine and felt good but the rear looked a bit torn up so I dropped it to 25 hot. It cleaned up nicely and is what you see in the pics. The rear was flipped at lunch and I set it to 21psi cold, which bumped up to 25 hot. Most of the day was in the 50°s.
Grip was excellent, maybe a half notch above the Pirelli TDs. They never got greasy but do slide with throttle when cranked over. Front had more feel than the Pirelli TD. Nice perk was longevity. It’s looking like I can get 1.5 Jennings days out of the rear vs a day on the Pirelli TD and a little less than a day on the Q4. Side note, the Metzelers took very little weight to balance, 1/4 oz for the rear tire. Overall a good tire.
Abhi Khullar