Tires

........ or the lack there of is more like it.

 We might have to make our own.

The Nomad for 2005 rolled off the line with Bridgestone Exedra tires. A G721 on the front and a G722 on the rear. However in 2005 the rear tire size grew to a 170/70-16 over the previous years of a 150/80-16 being back there. My factory installed rear tire got almost 8000 miles before I replaced it. I will say that the 2nd one I put on got 12,000 miles and the only reason I can come up as to why it improved so dramatically is that I became obsessed with tire pressures. Tires look perfectly fine even though they may be really low on air. I hear stories of people only getting 6500 miles out of the factory rear tire. Honestly I can't figure that one totally.  They must be doing burn outs and wide open accelerations. Bridgestone tires never really sat well with me as I always viewed them as a bit too hard a compound and prone to the rear end skipping in the corners. That was from my Yamaha 750 days many moons ago.  I really don't have a complaint on these stock tires for the Nomad.

Anyway, the Nomad front tire lasted for 14,000 miles, so when it wore out, I decided to give a Dunlop a try instead. They are a bit cheaper than the Metzeler ME880 Touring tire, or at least they are if you don't buy them from a Kaw dealer.

I have tried to assemble a guide of choices, as products exist today, for tire choices for the 1600 Nomad.

Bridgestone

   150/80-16                170/70B-16          Stock tires are the Front tire: 150/80-16 Bridgestone Exedra and the Rear tire: 170/70B-16 Bridgestone Exedra
 

DUNLOP TIRES

This is the one I purchased. the D404.  If I had taken a little more time on research, honestly I think I would have just stayed with the Bridgestone

tires and say to heck with trying to fine and maintain some odd set of mixed bias and radial tires. And besides, I didn't think I was going to get 12,000 miles out of the second Bridgestone on the rear. None the less here is the D404.

Dunlop  D404 150/80-16 and the D205 170/70R16

Tires seem to be like oil, everyone has a different take and a reason why what they use in or on their bike is the best.  While I could swear that Dunlop

had a D404 170/70-16, I be darned if I can locate it now. Shoot, I don't even see a D404 170/80-16. Hummm, gettin old I guess.  The tire is a meat and

potatoes type tire.  Nothing fancy or amazing about it. It seems to do fine in TN downpours as well as dry conditions. It seemed to wander a bit on

interstates though as it really follows the ruts. Not a bad tire but what's the point as there isn't a rear match. Grrrr. Some have suggested the

Dunlop D206 170/70R-16 Shadow Ace Rear as an option with the D404. Once again, we are looking at a bias ply front and radial rear with this combination.
 

Dunlop 491 Elite II front and Elite 3 Radial one the rear

Others have suggested a mixture of 491 Elite II and Elite 3 Radial.  The 491 II 150/80-16 on the front and the Elite 3  180/70R16 on the rear, but

these seem to be NOMAD 1500 owners not 1600 owners, for what it is worth, and in their case they would go up to a 160/70-16 on the rear.

And here you are again with the mixed a biased front and a radial rear. I have not tried these and you hear both good and bad. The good is they

seem to be higher mileage and decent handling and the bad side tells me they get squirrelly in the curves.

It may really just depend who driving.... I don't  know under what conditions they get squirrelly.

D251

150/80R16  &  180/70R16

Another Dunlop combination in a radial/radial setup is this, the D251. You are going to a sit little higher on the rear tire than the stock Bridgestone

tire. I do not pull a trailer or ride with someone on the back so I am not overly concerned with clearance issues as a result. I should be fine if I elected

to go this route. I have not tried these yet. I am interested in these and which I had some feedback on these. Only one person I have spoken with

has used on of the on the back of his Nomad and really likes them. He has reported nothing negative about them at the time of this writing.

Honda put these on the VTX1800. So I did some poking around on a VTX forum and wouldn't you know it. Very few people liked the stock Dunlops. LOL!!

Some recommended going to a Bridgestone. Too funny. So if I were to buy these I best they would probably last a little longer than a Bridgestone.

METZELER TIRES

  This is what I will be running in a day or so.

If you want to run ME880 Metzeler tires on your Nomad 1600, your choices are slim here as well and you will be doing a bias front and radial rear

such as this. 150/80-16M/CTL 71H ME880F and a 180/70R16M/CTL 77H ME880 for the rear. I an wondering if they didn't just toss this setup out there on

their configuration tool just so they could have a solution and not let Bridgestone totally win out. I have to believe that Kawasaki knew what they were

doing when they designed the Nomad 1600 and went with the sizes they did, which wasn't a 180/70-16 and they didn't design a bias front and radial rear.

Opinions vary  on the "all radial" or "all bias" and the "mixture option".

Interesting enough, Metzeler shows this on their site but not in the main PDF catalog...... a 150/80R16M/CTL..... yes a radial front tire.

Use the configuration tool and once you are shown the 2 suggested choices, click on one of them and you will see this chart. The 2 shown in bold black

are their suggestions, but look at the one in red. I can't seem to find it or much less order it anywhere. If you can let me know, I'll buy the beer.

ME880 FRONT Front 130/60VR18M/CTL(60V) ME880F 120/70-21M/CTL 62V ME880F 120/70B17TL 58V ME880F 120/70R17TL 58V ME880F 120/70ZR18M/CTL (59W) ME880F 120/70ZR19M/CTL (60W) ME880F 130/70B18M/CTL 63H ME880F 130/70R17M/CTL 62V ME880F 130/70R18M/CTL 63H(G) ME880F 130/70R18M/CTL 63HFRONT H ME880F 130/70R18M/CTL 63HGL ME880F 140/70-18M/CTL 67H ME880F 120/80-17 M/C 61V TL ME880 FRONT 140/80-17M/CTL 69H ME880F 150/80-16M/CTL 71H ME880F 150/80R16M/CTL 71V ME880F 150/80R17 M/C 72H TL ME880 FRONT 150/80R17M/CTL 72V ME880F 100/90-18M/CTL 56H ME880F 100/90-19 M/C 57H TL ME880 FRONT 110/90-18 M/C 61H TL ME880 FRONT 110/90-19 M/C 62H TL ME880 FRONT 120/90B18 M/C 65H TL ME880 FRONT 130/90-16 M/C 67H TL ME880 FRONT 80/90-21 M/C 48H ME880 FRONT 90/90-21M/CTL 54H ME880F ME880 Rear 200/50ZR18M/CTL (76W) ME880 210/50ZR17M/CTL(78W) ME880 180/55VR18M/CTL(74V) ME880 180/55ZR18M/CTL (74W) ME880 160/60R18M/C REINFTL 76V ME880 170/60R17M/CTL 72V ME880 180/60R16M/CTL 74H(G) ME880 200/60R16M/CTL 79V ME880 140/70-18M/C REINFTL 73H ME880 150/70B18M/CTL 70V ME880 160/70B17M/C REINFTL 79V ME880 180/70B15M/CTL 76H ME880 180/70R16M/CTL 77H ME880 200/70B15M/CTL 82H ME880 140/80B15M/CTL 67H ME880 140/80B17TL 69V ME880 150/80B15M/CTL 70V ME880 150/80B16M/CTL 71H ME880 160/80B16M/CTL 75H ME880 170/80B15M/CTL 77H ME880 130/90B16M/C REINFTL 73H ME880 140/90B15M/CTL 70H ME880 140/90B16M/C REINFTL 77H ME880 150/90B15M/C REINFTL 80H ME880

I had the ME880 tires on my VT1100C and they were outstanding. Having those put on that bike "woke it up" so to speak and was like a brand new bike

after that. I was impressed by the lack of wear on those tires as well. I put 11k miles on them and I could barley discern any wear on them.

AVON VENOMS

I don't know anything about these tires. People seem to like them and claim excellent handling characteristics and higher mileage than any other brand

so far.

I am assuming in the following example that the "R" in the "Venom R AM42" stands for radial. If that is true, then we have yet another Bias front

and Radial rear combo.  I have no idea how they will perform together. Probably no worse than any of the others.

Avon Venom AM42/AM41  - 150/80H16 Front                                    Avon - Venom R AM42 - 180/70H16 Rear 

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