Michelin Road 6

Tires. Right up there with oil when it comes to debates that go absolutely nowhere. Everyone has a favorite. Everyone swears by something different. For me, it landed on the Michelin Road 6.

These are marketed as a sport-touring tire, which usually means “good at everything, great at nothing.” But honestly… these are just good at everything.

Cold mornings? No drama.
Rain? Surprisingly planted.
Canyon rides where you probably start pushing a bit more than you planned? They handle it just fine.

Michelin claims better wet grip and longer life over the previous generation, and for once, that actually seems to hold up. I’ve never felt like I was waiting on the tire to catch up to what I was asking it to do.

They’re not track tires, and they don’t pretend to be. But for real-world riding—commuting, weekend rides, or those “quick” trips that turn into a few hundred miles—they just work.

No weird behavior. No surprises. No excuses. At this point, they’ve kind of become my default recommendation when someone asks, “What tire should I run?”

And honestly, that probably says enough.

Breaker Glass Cleaner

If you're like me and always like to have your windshield on your car clean, your headlights nice and clean, then you will absolutely love this cleaner.  It's a local shop out here in Northern California that carries their own glass cleaner. I kid you not, this stuff works better than Windex. It's relatively cheap, unheard of, and is better than any of the higher end cleaning product I have used. I have used it on my motorcycle visors, as well as car surfaces, and it gets the job done right.

Castrol 10w50 Motorcycle 4T Synthetic Oil

Oil. Possibly the most controversial topic in motorcycling—right up there with tire choice and “what’s the best bike.”

At the end of the day, it’s the lifeblood of your engine. It keeps everything spinning, shifting, and not turning into an expensive paperweight. Lubrication, cooling, smooth gear engagement—it does it all quietly in the background.

Castrol is what Triumph Motorcycles runs from the factory, and for good reason. My 2007 Speed Triple originally called for 15W-50, which nowadays in the U.S. is basically unicorn blood—good luck finding it consistently.

So I followed Triumph’s modern spec and switched to 10W-50.

70,000+ miles later… no complaints.

The bike still feels just as smooth, shifts clean, and hasn’t given me a single reason to second guess it. Oil filters are a whole different rabbit hole (we’ll get there), but as far as oil goes—Castrol has earned its spot in this bike.

We’ll keep the miles rolling and see how far it goes. 🤙

Sena SMH10 Bluetooth Communicators

If you do not have a Bluetooth device on your motorcycle helmet, you are missing out on one of the best modification/additions to your riding lifestyle. These connect to your phone through Bluetooth to allow streaming calls and music directly into your helmet! 

The SMH10 / 20S devices are by far the cheapest, and best investment to start into this world. They hold around 12 hours of battery life and take literally 1-2 hours of charge time. Super easy to connect to your phone or other Bluetooth devices.

Mine have survived countless crashes and still to this day provide epic results when riding! They are durable and yet surprising easy to put on/off a helmet. 

Start off slow with the SMH10's if you are unfamiliar with Bluetooth and you will not be disappointed! I do run the 20S now for my preferred options for the clip style mounts. I have lost a SMH10 or two from accidentally tapping the latch for a button press. Whoops!

Metzeler Roadtec 01 Tires

Metzeler Roadtec 01s

After a long-term love for Michelin tires, I finally justified that it was time for a change in my tire selection.  I have used numerous Michelin Pilot Road 2/3/4 tires in the numerous motorcycles that have been in my ownership. Up until the 4s, I have absolutely loved the feeling, durability, confidence in the tires.  The 4s started a rough ownership with these tires. The life span on two rears through my ownership was interesting. I started a normal balanced tire and a Dynabead balanced tire. Both in comparison were lousy in life.  I have crashed numerous times owning both these tires, mainly due to my lack of confidence in them through numerous turns in comparison to other sticky tires. Commuting on the 4s and getting the lousy life out of them through both balances has caused me to look elsewhere.

< Insert the Metzeler Roadtec 01s Tires to counter Michelin >

These tires seem to be the nail in the coffin to Michelin Pilot Road 4s.  Nothing but positive energy has been for the Metzelers on the market.  The lean in to turns is phenomenal for this classification of sport touring tire.  Dunlop Q3s are incredible but have that terrible longevity aspect. This is where the Metzeler Roadtec 01s have that great jack-of-all-trades title.  The more you turn into a twisty road, the more tire/material you have for friction between you and the road. The grooves are expertly crafted into the tire to help displace water when riding through the rain. Not as good as the Pilot Road 4s for displacement, but well enough to ride quickly and confidently through some good rain down the freeway.  The confidence through the twists and turns is what appealed mostly to me when shopping for new tires, but at the same time, I can commute the 35+ miles down to the city when needed frequently. These are pricey tires, so the expertise in their design is to be expected. I think Metzeler did an incredible job to compete with Michelin with the sport touring tire category.  It seems that longevity is becoming more important with commuters, but at the same time, having a tire that can still hug the road when needed.

Now Michelin came out with their Road 5s… Tune in for a comparison with the Metzeler Roadtec 01s and the Michelin Pilot Road 5s.

< Updated 12/10/19 >
So, it’s been over 10k miles on these bad boys. What gives? Where have the reviews been? Well my dudes, here’s the end result of these tires:

It’s nearly the holiday times and I cannot tell you how ready I am for new tires. I actually posted a review on Revzilla about these tires and you can check it out here. But to recap if you do not feel comfortable clicking that link and going to the dark web; I can honestly say, I hate these tires. Maybe because I’m biased to Michelins (I run them on my cages too) but after the first 5k miles, I do not feel confident on these tires.

I went on a fairly long ride (1025 miles) in the summer or 2018, and I went through a lot of different road conditions. From foggy weather, to dry desert roads, to light rain of San Fransisco, to the mountain passes of outback Lake Berryessa.. These tires were great, only when the road was dry and not covered with debris. I broke these tires in properly on that ride. Wheelies on the daily, to knee down in corners, this ride really exposed me to how these tires perform. Now that I am in the winter/rainy/snowy season, I tend to be paranoid riding around with these. After hitting several light sandy roads, I had little to no traction and nearly shat my pants on every experience. After 10k miles or so now, these tires seem to take forever to heat up in the cold season, fishtailing is a normal occurrence with damp roads.. I literally cannot wait to switch back to Michelins and try out those Road 5s (which I hear are phenomenal).

If you’re on the fence, I would recommend going after the Michelins, just from my experience with the many many miles I have had with the 2/3/4s.

Rubber side down lads!