Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum
Royal Enfield Motorcycles => Bullet Iron Barrel => Topic started by: vonfilm on June 07, 2013, 07:54:56 pm
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Bike Bandit has good prices on Dunlop K70 front tires in 3.25 x19 and 3.50 x19. Can I use the 3.50x19 front tire on the rear of my 2002 Bullet 350ES? What are the drawbacks to this idea?
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Absolutely. I used several 3.50s on the rear of mine. They worked great. But a bit short lived, however the price kinda made up for it.
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Far as I know, it's the same tire, whether designated front or rear.
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I have one on mine now. It's a good one.
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The handling of the K70 3.50 on the front will not be a flickable as the 3.25 on the front and3.50 on the rear. The handling of 3.5 on both front and rear is acceptable but not fantastic.
Handling best with 3.25 front 3.50 rear.
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He asked if he could use a 3.50-19 K70 on the rear. Not how it would handle with one on the front.
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The handling of 3.5 on both front and rear is acceptable but not fantastic.
Handling best with 3.25 front 3.50 rear.
In theory. In practice, there's no noticable difference, at least with standard handlebars.
Now that I put clip-ons on the bike, the steering is feeling a little slower; of course, there's less leverage from the narrow bars, but maybe the fatter tire is also showing its influence.
But all in all, from 3.25 to 3.5 is an eighth of an inch on either side. Yes, the carcass is a bit bulkier overall, but it's really not a dramatic difference. Even on a 30-lb mountain bicycle, a quarter-inch difference in the tire is only the bare minimum you'd need to notice any change in handling.
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I noticed that changing to the K70 3.25 front from the dimensionally smaller 3.25 OEM Avon tire made a small improvement in turning - maybe a new Avon would have done that too. I know the big improvement was replacing the stock rear Avon with the 3.50 K70. Handling in curves and corners as well as low speed turning improved noticeably with the rounder profile. It is "stickier" than the OEM Avon, but in the Avon's defense, it was old and hard as a rock.