That's a better explanation and leaves no questions about the tire being fitted and produced wright. The road attacks did get pretty good reviews by lots of mags and I also think it rides very well and that they offered good grip in wet and not so warm conditions. Maybee you can let us now how the front feels Rocklee. Also wonder what kind of millage they will do.

Robert I personally don't think that the reversal will have mutch effect on grip and lap times aren't the main objective for what's bassicly a sport touring tire. I also thought that most of the grip(wet or dry) came from the compound on road tires and less so from the thread pattern(on the track this is obviously different where they use full wets etc.). Finnaly all tires will have to be aproved by the Tüv in Germany for the/ and on the specific bikes they will be used with, if they are not tested they will get no aproval for the German roads. Criterium for this test is that they have to match or exceed the performance of the tires that where fitted by the factory for a certain model(also no mixing and matching of different types/brands of fronts and rears if this combination hasn't been tested by the Tüv). Personnaly I value the Tüv aproval quite highly so still would feel save buying the roadattacks if they still come Tüv aproved for my bike. I do feel though for your point made of the reversal being more of a marjeting issue then a performance one.

Thanks Skippy. My suspicions confirmed. A punch in the eye for Conti. The people on this board are inquisitive (Good Thing!). Maybe we are the first consumers, as a group ,to notice and to call them to the carpet. I could feel the sweat coming through in that representative's e-mail response.

Bob and jclark, Your front tires are mounted the correct lower mileage configuration. Powert, yours and mine are mounted correctly in the incorrect higher mileage way with Conti's permission of course.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1169063664.jpg This is all I need to know about Conti's. Yeah I know I should have inspected um better, but they were mounted correctly.

...wot a fuggin' weird story...whoda thunk?

Thanks Rock....I feel much better now. :D

Bob, don't mention it.... Conti didn't!

Uhhh, my pic is of my Rear tire...

jeff

And this is how my front is mounted...

Got it from the horses mouth. Janet Decandia, acting in Greg Reich's stead at Continental told me point blank in a phone conversation today that tread design is purely asthetic. She said, "You could just as well be riding on slicks on the highways and it wouldn't matter". When I questioned her concerning the danger of operating slicks (besides being illegal) in the rain, she responded "the racers do it". I then mentioned to her that rain tires that racers use have grooves to pump water away from the contact patch and she became silent! She thought that dry weather slicks were run in any race and any weather environment! Then it was "just try the tires to see if you like them". Non-riding Polititians head that company. They are now in full defense mode.
Just try the Firestone 500's and see if you like them!

This just gets thicker as we go. Raise your left arm boys and girls so you can save the watch.

Interesting. Rather than trust an engineer to call they send a PR type with a knowledge base shallow as a wear bar. There are many ways to diss someone, and sending the ignorant to explain is one. Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Rocklee.

Still may be a lot of truth to that as I said before road tires rely more on compound then anything for grip nowadays(at least that's how I understand it). Lot's of roadtires and esspecialy the sporty ones have very little thread nowadays and certainly nothing like wet racing tires. Still lots of them seem to function very well in the wet(also the roadattacks in old config do very well for my needs and I was amased how hard I could brake on wet surface without ABS kicking in).

It's a shame though that people who clearly don't know what they are talking about are being used to "advise" people in issues that involve roadsafety.

I do think Conti is quite a serious operation though as they had quality issues with roadattacks in the past( there where complaints of tires that wobled to mutch, if that's the wright term for it) and as a result of these complaints they moved the production to Germany where they found that they could insure better quality control and deliver higher production standards. That said they aren't helping there product quality image by the reps they seem to be employing. If the guy doesn't know(enough) what he is talking about he should have passed the question on to someone nolligable(a designer or technician that was involved with the roadattack design) and have him answer the question to the customers intead of trying to sastisfy the customer with some bs quick solution answer.

My front tire is mounted "treadwise", the opposite of the rear. That is, the pointy end of the treadpattern touches first when touching the ground ( when rotating forward ) followed by the widening end.

The rears are the opposite.

Also there is *no* arrow on the tread of the front tire ( just on the sidewall ) - just a bunch of 'dots' around the circumference...

jeff

I went to BMW of Atlanta the other day to see if any of their bikes had Road Attacks. There was a R1200R with them. The front was oriented with the pointed part of the tread pointing forward on the top of the tire. There were no arrows on the tread. The tire was made in Germany.

I may go out this weekend and just see how it does in its current config.

More to this story
 

There is more to this story... Called Germany today and got the brush off.

More Monday as I am off to the NYMC show.

As I said I am not a fan of this tire. It is based upon known issues.

Never again Boxercup..never again. I am kind of structured with my selections. I generally wait for test results and for the responses of people who have used parts/pieces before I buy but this one got by me. Conti got their initial good reviews from the magazine tests but the long term results were a different story. They want to honestly be able to tout that they have both a grippy and long wearing sport tire but my research based on reliable sources had seen irregular to potentially catastrophic tire degradation towards the end of this tires life span. In other words after a while, the end comes quickly and even with plenty of tread left. In hindsight I should have gone with Mich PR's or Metz Z6's. Buy Attacks at your own risk!

Thanks for the warning Rocklee will look out with my set when they start to wear.

Good to see your on to it Robert and very curious to what you can find out and what your findings will be. Did notice that there are also R1200R's being delivered with Michelin now don't know if this says something but the conti's where designed specificly for the BMW(off course a roadattack but a special version for the BMW R1200R if I'm informed correct) so it seems a bit odd that hey are also going with Michelin now.

You know....I suspect this is another example of where benign change upgrades itself to deception in the mind of the public. Would that Conti would just explain to all just what the deal is and then we'd all be happy and maybe buy another set. But rather than do the work, they slow roll, sending the ignorant to expound, hoping it'll all go away. They just didn't count on a forum like this being so anal as to want to really know the deal! The internet is not something to be messed with....word gets around.

'irregular to potentially catastrophic tire degradation towards the end of this tires life span. In other words after a while, the end comes quickly and even with plenty of tread left. In hindsight I should have gone with Mich PR's or Metz Z6's. Buy Attacks at your own risk!'

this is NOT good.

I'm running a set of early roadattacks with 5k+ miles on them, at about 70% wear.
at about 60% wear, I noticed some wierd handling stuff going on when pushed hard, but I thougtht it was me.

A close visual inspection shows nothing but normal tread wear, but what's happening INSIDE the carcass.

time for Xray analysis?

I USED to really like conti tires...now the jury's out, in my mind.