Continental Racing Rubber
Continental Racing Rubber
Continental Rubber Company, West Germany’s largest tire manufacturer, has announced a new series of high-performance, bias-ply tires designed especially for production-class roadracing. Called the ContiCompetition TKV11 and TKV12, these new tires are intended to compete head-on with the tires that currently dominate in production racing—specifically, the Dunlop Elite Sport R, the Metzeler ME 99A and ME 33, and the Michelin TG22 and TF11. Because tires used in production classes must have DOT approval, the TKVs also are streetlegal and suitable for aggressive sport riding, but their main objective is to be competitive on the racetrack.
The TKV 12 is designed expressly for rear-wheel use, and is claimed to put between 80 and 95 percent of its available tread elements in contact with the ground, depending upon the angle of lean. The TKV 11 has an entirely different tread pattern that puts an average of 83 percent of the footprint area on the ground, and it is available in both frontand rear-tire sizes and profiles.
Under dry conditions, the TKV 12 is recommended on the rear largely because it puts more rubber on the ground than the TKV 1 1 does. That’s quite important in light of the massive amounts of horsepower put out by modern big-bore sportbikes. And the TKV 1 1 has the proper profile to provide good steering behavior and feel, and excellent front-wheel traction. But due to the better water-drainage afforded by the diamond-shaped tread blocks on its outer edges, the TKV l l is claimed to be a better rear tire than the TKV 12 for racing in the rain or for fast riding on wet roads.
Based on our brief encounter with the ContiCompetition tires, we’d have to agree. We had a chance to try both the TKV l l and TKV 12, in the rain as well as on dry pavement, during Continental’s world press introduction held on the Autódromo do Estoril roadrace circuit in Portugal. And although Continental had no competitive tires on hand there for comparison, we still came away quite impressed with the TKVs. In the wet, the test bikes (which included Kawasaki 900 and 750 Ninjas, Honda 750 Interceptors and a CB l 100R) that had TKV 11 s at both ends clung to the track remarkably well, whereas those with TKV 12s on the back tended to be a bit skittery in the rear. Once the track dried, though, the superiority of the TKV 12 as a rear tire was apparent, for it exhibited virtually no sliding or drifting when the bikes were pushed at near-racing speeds.
For now, ContiCompetition tires are available in just one compound that the company feels offers the best compromise between maximum traction and acceptable wear; but Continental plans to offer both a softer and a harder compound at a later date.
