Tyres question

Hi,
I'm fairly new to my 1150RT - I've only done a few hundred km on it since purchase.
I have to admit that I'm not getting along with it, it seems 'twitchy' compared to the GS. Last night I was riding home and after about 5 minutes of riding the back end tried to step out on me twice in quick succession. I certainly wasn't doing anything daft with the throttle - I was going uphill at the time.

I'm not sure if this is a combination of wet roads, cold tyres, tyre pressure, but I was wondering if anyone else has had any issues with Metzeler Marathon Ultra tyres?

Thanks in advance,
DA

Your suspension could be shot...and tyres ok. Depending on the age of the bike and history of care by previous owners I'd have this high on my list to check.

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You might have just been unlucky with conditions as my 1150rt goes well for an 1150 but is really lazy if it loses grip under acceleration... They do handle very differently and check you don't have a slow seal leak from the diff onto the back wheel...

Ps you can use a whole range of tyres and I use later rear GS sizes in ADV road patterns as they are great tyres and have way more tread... No bother...

Wrigsby1 said:

You might have just been unlucky with conditions as my 1150rt goes well for an 1150 but is really lazy if it loses grip under acceleration... They do handle very differently and check you don't have a slow seal leak from the diff onto the back wheel...

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Thanks for this - I have to say that it doesn't inspire much confidence in corners when it can't cope well with straight lines!

Disaster Area said:

Thanks for this - I have to say that it doesn't inspire much confidence in corners when it can't cope well with straight lines!

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Just checked out those marathon ultras and they are a tourer/cruiser tyre and will be the hard end of things... You can even get white walled ones which doesn't bode well... I follow my younger courier days of grippier front and harder back but like I said have reverted to tyres suited to 1200 GS sizes which is the same as the RT for the back ..
Up to now I've used a Dunlop and and now on an Anlas... They all grip ok and I'd try that instead of cruiser spec... Modern GSs et al have way more go than our oilhead RT's and they work well on them... Plus you get 8mm tread instead of 4-5... I ride in all sorts of shite weather so give it a go... RTs are great bikes and the 1150s are still one of the great crap weather/ winter bikes...