OK, I'm sold. I put Dunlop Q2s on the Suzuki this spring after hating my Pilot Power Pures all year.
For the first time ever, I'm going to personally recommend a Dunlop tire. The Q2s work as soon as I'm leaving the garage, don't spin much at all (with 180whp that's remarkable) no matter what my attitude, turn the bike quickly and generally tell me what they're up to. Before I posted this up, I put 3,000km on the Q2s just to be sure that I was as impressed with them as my initial rides in cold weather.
This is a complete departure from the Michelin 2CTs and Power Pures that I tried on the bike, which were numb, fought anything but a fully committed lean and spun on that bike in 2nd gear all the time (at partial throttle, in case you're wondering).
I had the Pures on both the GSX-R and the Tuono and also sold some spares to a couple of friends. On all of them, they made the bike feel wooden, balanced on a knife edge and would fight anything less than race-track turn-in. Having ridden the Tuono for 1200km last week before getting back on the GSX-R last night, I seriously almost turned myself right into the ditch just leaving my driveway, the difference in ease of turn-in is that remarkable. And the Tuono is *NOT* a hard bike to turn by nature.
I'm sure someone will find a way to disagree with me but I and about five of my sportbike friends that turned to the Q2s this spring (some of them because they're cheap) agree that this is the best tire we've ever used. Several of them are using them on their track bikes as well and like them better than the DOT Pirellis they used last year. I think they're nuts on that count, but hey...
Don't ask me how they wear yet. I don't know. I put mine on before Deal's Gap this year and with 3000km on them, they look a bit worn but nothing like the BT014s I've taken down there that are literally finished at the end of the trip. I think I'll get 5,000km out of these and probably would get more like 9,000km out of them if I hadn't been down in the mountains being silly.
Anyway... I'm just relieved to know that the handling issues I struggled with last year were the tires. Too cheap to throw useful tires away, I persevered all season thinking that was likely the case... and I was right.
