Educate me on tires

I want to replace the tires on my 1983 KZ550 LTD with standard wheels. Currently it has Kenda Challengers mounted. 100/90 19 front and 130/90 16 in the rear. They show more age than wear and even though I don't push my bike very hard I am willing to spend a little more on tires than it would cost to replace these.

These are tubeless tires, correct? I came across conflicting information searching the net for them. What type of tires are recommended for this bike? Tube or tubeless? I don't know if these wheels can accept both types so please recommend a few of your favorites!

If you have mag wheels you are probably in the market for tubeless tires...spoked wheels usually require tubes.

You could hardly go wrong with Bridgestone, Metzler or Dunlop tires...imho.

What does your Owner's Manual or Factory Service Manual recommend? If you don't own either of these, you ought to get em...invaluable.

Good luck!

Early KZ mag wheels are all tube type, they started switching to tubeless in the early eighties. If your rims are made for tubeless tires they will say "tubeless" somewhere on the rim, if they don't then they are tube type. I will not run tube type mags tubeless on any of my bikes, just ask and I'll post pics of both types of rims so you can see the difference

Pretty much all tires sold today are marked tubeless, but most (if not all) are also rated for tubes.

They are tubeless. I had an 82 KZ550 LTD running those same size tires. Best tires I had on it was a set of Metzeler ME880's. I rode that set of tires 5 days a week, 64 miles a day, for 8 months, and they still had plenty of tread left. They cornered well, and had pretty good wet traction as well.

I ran a set of Kenda Challengers on a Yamaha 550 Seca, they were ok tires. Worlds better than the crappy Cheng Shin Hi-Max tires, those rode the rain grooves on California freeways like a slot car!