You said it. I have always felt the other way then what most of the online Apache owners have come across.I have been riding Apaches back from the 150cc series(from last 5 years) and i have never ever felt anything bad about the tyres.All of my friends who have the 150s,160s and Fi have never ever complained about the performance of the tyres and i personally know their riding capabilities. It's always the rider which controls the ride not the other way.

The few scares which i have faced in Apaches(in wet conditions) is was because i wasn't concentrating much or i wasn't aware of the road conditions which could have happened to me even i was riding any other bike.So i would be a fool to blame the tyres only.There are various other factors which decides how you balance yourself on two wheels. And i would be a bigger fool if i corner on a wet/sandy road at breakneck speed. Not saying that, the TVS tyres on RTR series are the best but they are not as bad as they are made out to be.

PS:In they end, they are no Michelin or Pirellis.So i have learnt the art of balancing my riding capabilities with the bike's overall limits.

Many a times i also feel that i should have bought r15....but now i think there is no such problem that cannot be solved under warranty.......still 1 1/4 year....still i can replace some parts i guess

I've ridden my fair share of bikes and i must say the tyres on my fi are THE worst tyres i've ever seen.

Last november we had some brief showers in bombay, and i was riding one evening when it started raining. Now, we all know that newly wet roads are more slippery than roads that have been washed clean of all the dirt and dust even in pouring rain, but i was doing maybe 60 on a straight stretch of good tar road, no curves or brakes or anything involved, and the rear just started fishtailing. I slowly let off the throttle, and managed to regain control. Nothing much usually scares me, but this was a moment. It's very unnerving when the machine lets the rider down. Rider skill doesn't usually exceed the capabilities of the bike 90% of the time.

And don't get me started on the braking performance of the tyres. I ride most other bikes, be it pulsars or cbzs pretty much the same way and i don't have the problems i do on my Fi. So yeah, the tyres are the WORST i've ever used.

The 180's may be different, dunno.

I have felt this from day 1. I find my TVS tyres very good. I am at advantage since my dad's bike runs on TVS Dragon tyre which is pretty good too. Whenever there is a wet patch or gravel on the road, I play it safe.
I wonder why riders here complain a lot! I agree MRF makes much better tyres but all can't be of the same quality, right?

EDIT:
+100 to Chicane!!
It's always the rider who controls the ride not the other way round!!

straight road no braking no curve and fishtail
dosent sound good
cause 150 kg+ on 60km/h bike has so much inertia that wheel shud rotait freely if tyre are free rotaiting their is no resistance so no way to skid

i think you have suddenly given throttel or have close it
2 may be your tyre was complety gon
or your bike has given hiccups at that time or
you has down down shift and dosent match revs.

They are just the same, the compound used is ditto.
I've never complained about the performance of the TVS tires on dry tar/cemented roads, they perform well and even squeal under braking, indicating almost leech like grip to the tarmac.



But the point is I was never confident while doing it, and that's bad.

But when we talk about the wet road.....they SUCK.
Try taking a turn at 35-40kmph or even 25-30kmph in 2 or 3 gears with slight lean and it will scare the shit outta you, the rear use to virtually slide while coming out of it.
I'll suggest you guys here to try it on a open road, both tar or cemented but wet and you'll get the point.
On a straight stretch of wet road one can do 120kmph on TVS tires all day long, they do aquaplaning quite good, they'll perform good, will inspire confidence but the moment you'll lean your bike a little they'll show you their true colors.

The stock TVS tyres werent that bad on dry or even off roads for that matter. Once i was taking a u-turn at 10kmph after crossing over some water which was scattered on the road. The turn itself was dry but the small amount of water that was still sticking to the tyres made it skid and it was trying to low side and cars were coming from the opposite side. I controlled it somehow. Now i wasnt doing anything foolish in this situation was i? And yet i was so close to kissing the road. It was then and there that i I decided that my life is worth more than the price of new tyres.

Hey guys...I just noticed a kind of 'chin chin' sound while riding at arnd 30...this sound disappears at higher speed...! kindly mke me aware if this is a known issue..!!!

Now which sensible guy in the world who loves his life would try to lean at 60kmph on wet road even if he had the best tyre in the world?

Can u clarify on area from where the sound originates and its intensity?

its probably from the front wheel...i guess...!!!

Tyre still has a lot of usable tread, 18 months old. Constant speed of about 60, no throttle or gear changes. What happened was it suddenly rained on a dry, dusty road. This resulted in a sort of thin layer of slush. The tyre just doesn't have the grip to handle it. Result was a lateral loss of traction. Why does the rear wheel always step out and not brake in a straight line when you lock the rear brake? I was very lucky not to fall, you wouldn't believe how much it was fishtailing if you saw it. And my rd used to fishtail between 110 and 120 when the rear tyre pressure was low, so i know what it feels like, but that's another story.

I'm not very sure about this, but wouldn't squealing under braking mean that the tyre is actually slightly skidding over the road surface? If it was only braking it would do it quietly. Think about it, the noise a car makes when braking hard, and then the amount of noise it makes when it's skidding, like when you hit the handbrake and the wheels lock. My understanding is that a squealing tyre means the tyre is being overwhelmed by the brake which is desperately asking for a grippier tyre.

I've scraped my main-stand on the right side - a heavy pillion meant the shocks were well compressed, need to weld the tab so it sits higher up, but you're absolutely right about the lack of confidence even though you're peg scraping.
The problem in my case was exaggerated by the dust on the road, if it had rained for a while and the road was clean, even 1" of water wouldn't have been much of a problem. Anyway what i wanted to say was that i've been in the same situation before but no other tyre has been so bad.
And for those who want to argue saying it's the rider and the tyres don't make any difference, one of my buddies fit a 130 or 140 michelin or pirelli to his p180. I chewed him out for oversizing so much, but in the end it's results that matter. A particular turn he would take at bandra at 60, he could now do at 80+ with confidence. A good rider rides by feel, and you can feel the feedback from the tyres before they actually begin to lose traction and slide.

Get your bearing and speedometer cable checked/greased.

Seconded.

And if it's the rider who's all doing it and not the tyre, then i take right hander at 70 in third gear, modulating the throttle, and i can fish tail RTR with TVS tyre without even stepping on the rear brakes, and there's no way i can better or correct it without replacing the tyre.

The rear steps out of the line even if you show it a hint of engine braking while still in lean, and the worst is try dropping to 2 gear at 40kmph from 3, while being still in the lean run, and you'll come to know that even if you're a "Doctor" behind the wheel of the RTR with TVS tyres, you just can correct the hint of fishtailing it throws on you.

Courtsey the TVS tyres, the main culprit being the badly designed/hard compound/ or whatever the $hit the sidewalls has.

The main essence of the discussion is, the TVS tyres may be good for puttring around the city and going straight in a line but when it comes to playing with your bike, go get a new sets of tyres.



Then i'am wrong mistaking it as the grippy nature, but the tyre squeals more with 20-24 Ps at the rear and 12-14 ps at front than the properly inflated one.
Wont it be gripping the tarmac more with the low pressure since it enables it to hug/kiss/contact the tarmac more?



Now imagine scraping the centre stand, even if you were double, the tire was at its limit of testing at that point, since you were putting more weight on the sidewalls (double plus the lean).

I'am always scared, having that bug in the mind who reminds me before evry lean that this tire may let you down, that backs my leaning angle, makes me keep my foot on the brakes and makes me extra carefull while doing it all.
Simple, if i'am comfortable and confident, not worried, while doing a lean i can put much good leaning angles at my personal record books.

+1 to the reds.

I always talk to my bike in a loud voice inside my helmet while accelarating, braking while taking a lean.....

And this was the talk of the rear tire so far, i must tell you guys here that you approach a corner at 70 kmph in 3 gear, brake a little ,blip and shift to 2 at half clutch (just to keep the revs "busy", preventing them to drop much, to stay in the powerband) much before the right or left hander (whatever the turn is) make sure it doesnt locks up the wheel by the engine braking and carve your bike deep into the turn, not leaning but dive into the turn, somewhat like attacking a corner with high speed, not taking the lean form the wide angle but from the corner of the road you'll take your lean from, putting the weight onto the front, braking just before the corner gradually and then accelerating hard from it, and The front will scare the shit outta you, i bet you can feel/see it virtually sliding off the road, then you have to lean out of the bike while modulating the throttle, doing opposite lock with the steering a little, tapping the rear brake to correct it at the nick of the time.

As i said i'm not too sure about the exact physics behind this, but i guess reducing pressure would work to a certain point, beyond which it's still the compound which matters. Reducing pressure is really useful on loose material like sand, but on tar and concrete, a good tyre will grip 100% even at the recommended pressure. Sticky tyres won't squeal, they will just grip and brake. Btw, i've found running below 20psi on the front messes up the handling really bad. The funniest thing about this whole discussion was that we're really comparing the tvs tyres to the local indian competition like mrf, we're not even getting into the michelin and pirelli territory. That itself should prove how bad they are.

I've felt the exact same way on my bike. On all my other bikes, even my boxer, which i had put very good tyres on, i always attacked corners. On the rtr's tyres i have to gently coast through, even though the speed is high, i feel like i'm limiting myself because i could do the same corner way faster on the boxer. Btw, dropping a gear just at the start of a corner will not usually cause a disastrous slide if you do it right. The wheel will lock for a second, till the gears match to the revs and then continue through. Mid corner though, it could drop because the crap tyres are at their limits. You shouldn't be dropping gears inside a corner anyway, braking and gear drops should be max at the start of the corner, like when you're just starting to lean the bike. But i bet you know that already.
Btw, the doctor fell and broke his tibia. Proves the 1st rule of biking - everyone falls. I always used to think he was invincible. Hardly seen him crash 4-5 times, forget break a bone.

The low on the pressure suealing was happened accidently as i forgot when i checked the pressure of the tyre and i think after the 2-3 days of the suealing when i went to the air pump for the refill i came to know i was too low on the pressure, then to check the suealing again i tried the hard on the brakes method on the properly filled tyres and they suealed again.

Yes running on low pressure makes the front tad heavy but, but i havent noticed any diff from the rear (the max i dropped one time was at 18 and at that point you can hear a tyre noice while leaning inside your helmet too)

to the camparo point!!!
MRF Q beats the crap outta TVS, that tyre gave me loads of confidence in my FIERO which had a scary front end (i had FS at front in it 80/90 though that was a rear tyre and it wasn't wise to put a rear tyre to the front) the FIERO's rear suspension was scary around the corner and used to give rebound effect still after switching to the ZAPPERS my confidence level was very high and in those tires i scrapped the FIERO's peg which is impossible to do with TVS tires without kissing the tarmac.

I think even CEAT will beat the TVS around corners, and a CEAT guy on RTR will post much better timing on the track than the TVS one.

TVS never use the TVS tyre on the track RTR's!!!!!!!!
This shows how good their product around corner is, and remember they have one of the best guys behind the handles.


Changing gears while in lean should be avoided, but i tried it once in RTR, from 3 to 2, blipping the throttle much more than needed with half clutch, that resulted in nil engine braking thus the lockup, but still the rear fishtailed, and the road was tar and complete dry.

The front also will also skid away badly if you'll aggressively change the direction, mainly happens when one lean ends and other starts with very little patch of straight raod in between, when you get out from the croutched position for a sec, then croutch again to that "weight on the forward" postion and prepare for a lean again (left ended and right started or vice versa), you can feel and virtually see the front going away from the line, it's $hitty scary when you'll do it at 60-65kmph, again courtsey the tires.

The TVS tires are at their limits the moment you tilt your bike even to 5 degrees of an angle, i bet there's no one at this thread who leaned/danced around the corners on RTR with complete peace of mind and never experienced FISHTAILING/TAIL SLIDING/REAR STEPPING OUT/FRONT SLIDING/HARD BRAKING SQUEALING/FRONT STEPPING OUT.

P.S:
It was sad to hear ROSSI fall and injuring himself.