Have Dunlop wide white walls on it now. Need new rear tire. One of my mechanic buddies who gets me a pretty good deal on tires wants to put a Continental on the back. He says the compounds are the same, and it will work well and cost less etc. and everything I've heard about the Continental leads me to believe they are a good tire. Asked him about a Metzler and he advised against it saying the differences in compounds between the two were too different. When I wear out both of the tires I will try out a set of Metzler white walls, but for now I just can't rationalize getting rid of a perfectly good front tire. Is this a safe idea? I'm a little skeptical, but really, it should be good I would think, and I do trust this guys opinion.

 

I have run a Dunlop front and Metzeler rear on several occasions on a couple different bikes and never had any issuses or problems. Then when the Front wore out changed it to a Metz.

 

I just put a Metzler on the front, still have the Dunlop on the rear. Can't tell any difference.

 

Ran Dunlop on front and Avon on rear. No issues.

 

Technical articles will tell you that your bike will perform best on matched tires. High Performance articles will tell you the same thing. Equal traction and all that type of stuff. BUT, I don't think most Harley riders are pushing their bikes to the handling limits, so I don't think for the average Joe rider it's any issue. Most of the things I've read on the subject suggest that you will not really have any safety concerns. It's just that your bike can't perform to the limits of it's capabilities. Matched, you can go faster from point A to point B if you are riding at the limits of your or your bikes capabilities. If there is a big difference between your limits and your bikes limits, you'll never even notice the difference. Most of us are not pro riders taking it to the limit during our daily rides, so most of us won't see any difference between matched and mismatched tires.