ribbed tires

At the risk of being redundant:) I wanted to get everyone's opinion on ribbed versus non-ribbed tires.
wiredgeorge gave his valuable opinion that the necessity of ribbed tires is past with today's tires. But some folks (Dave Marsden in particular)advocate still using them. I searched the archives and found nothing. So what gives? Is this a non-issue or is one style better than the other? I need to buy tires!

Thanks for the indulgence.

I would say that it depends on not just weather conditions (ribbed tires disipate water better), but also on road surface conditions.
I'm not sure about other states, but here in So Calif freeways and some city roads have what are called "rain groves" cut into them, which helps keep water from pooling up and causing vehicles to hydro-plane.
Ribbed tires catch those groves, and give a motorcycle rider the sense that the bike is wandering/swerving (the front tire "tracks" in the groves, while the rear tire does not = wandering/swerving).

I hope the explanation from my point of view helps.

CTSZ1 wrote:

At the risk of being redundant:) I wanted to get everyone's opinion on ribbed versus non-ribbed tires.
wiredgeorge gave his valuable opinion that the necessity of ribbed tires is past with today's tires. But some folks (Dave Marsden in particular)advocate still using them. I searched the archives and found nothing. So what gives? Is this a non-issue or is one style better than the other? I need to buy tires!

Thanks for the indulgence.

after trying both id say yes the ribs do catch road surface grooves more so than a non ribbed tire. ive used ribs up until late last yr and switched to dunlops without the ribs. so far i like them no issues yet...steve

When I got my first KZ it had a ribbed front tire. It did the same 'catching' over the rain grooves in the concrete road surface. If they scored the rain groves to perfectly follow the road direction it wouldn't seem so bad, but they don't. The grooves themselves tend to wander all over the lane. Besides, I would rather control my direction, rather than have the road grooves control the steering. I have since replaced the tires with Bridgestone Spitfires, and the bike behaves much better (not a ribbed tire design).

Post edited by: apeman, at: 2006/02/20 00:16