I was riding a Suzuki GSX-S1000GX+, reveling in its lusty inline-four engine, killer gearbox, and loquacious front end. As arresting as I found the Suzuki, the setting of the ride was equally affecting: the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, north of the seaside city of Split, a buttress of tourism renowned for its aquamarine waters and the ancient ruins of Diocletian’s Palace. The mountains met the sea in the distance. The roads were sublimely twisty and nearly deserted. It was 75 degrees outside. The scent of blossoming trees wafted through my Arai. My feelings alternated between calm contentment and exhilaration, creating that soul-soothing, adrenaline-pumping happy place well known to motorcyclists. Soon, I was getting lost in the cloud of control, the ethereal state of oblivion and fearlessness won by riding well and in such a place as this. And then I nearly overcooked it in a corner.

I dipped the GSX-S into a blind right-hander, doing everything right (if way below the limits of the motorcycle’s capabilities): trail-braking in, loading the front end, hanging off just a bit. Suddenly, the corner tightened up, surprising the group of us—I could tell from the flurry of brake lights illuminating in front of me. I applied a tad more front brake, instinctively dropped my inside elbow, and the Suzuki tightened its course, keeping me on the right side of the centerline.So it wasn’t really a close call. Still, it was a moment of heightened awareness—of reacting, not thinking. My sensory receptors took in an hour’s worth of data in a millisecond. And the last thing on my mind at that moment was my tires. Which was ironic considering I was in Croatia to test Bridgestone’s latest Battlax Sport Touring T33 tires.What’s New?

The T33 is an update to Bridgestone’s T32 sport-touring tire. Compared to the RS11 and S23 tires which headline Bridgestone’s hypersport lineup, the T33 dials up wet-weather performance and durability for a true touring-oriented tire that doesn’t skimp on grip. Bridgestone’s main objective was to increase durability while maintaining the performance and handling characteristics of the T32. The company claims the T33 can achieve a 47% increase in mileage. The outgoing T32 was available in two specs: the standard T32, intended for motorcycles weighing less than 500 pounds, and the T32 GT, intended for motorcycles weighing over 500 pounds. But for the T33, changes to the compound, tread pattern, and construction enabled Bridgestone to build a single spec of tire capable of accommodating both lightweight and heavyweight motorcycles, simplifying the number of SKUs for distributors and dealerships. Because of its wide-ranging adaptability, Bridgestone has made it available in 15 different sizes. One Sport-Touring Tire To Rule Them All?

Kevin Cameron writes: “A tire that works on your friend’s Brand A machine may not work so well on your Brand B. Tires are very individual in character; as always, the only generalizations are these: Tires are round and black.”KC’s point makes it all the more impressive that the T33 was developed to work well on such a wide array of motorcycles—Brands A and B, but also Brands C, D, and E. While “sport-touring” may be motorcycling’s broadest, most imprecisely labeled category, it’s fair to say I tested the T33s on more than just sport-touring motorcycles. Here’s the rundown:The 200-pound deviation in weight between the lightest and heaviest motorcycles (the Monster and R 1300 GS Adventure, respectively) is particularly important to note considering a motorcycle’s weight is the most significant factor in determining its suitability for a given tire. That’s why Bridgestone produced the outgoing T32 in two specifications. The weight of a motorcycle—in addition to braking forces acting on the front, and torque acting on the rear—affect both the casing and the tread. Keith Willcome, manager of product strategy for Bridgestone America’s motorcycle division, says: “In simple terms, a heavier motorcycle flexes the tread part of the tire more than does a light motorcycle. This is what we design for when balancing performance between light and heavy bikes.”

Broadly speaking, in designing a tire, a manufacturer has three components to work with: 1) the casing, 2) the tread, and 3) the tread pattern. The casing (also called the carcass), which gives the tire its shape and strength, is made from rubber-impregnated cords (often made of nylon or rayon) that attach to steel bead wires that seat the tire on the rim. The tread is the meat of the tire, the rubber surface that directly interacts with the asphalt. The pattern, the conglomeration of siping that gives a tire its unique look, is responsible for shedding water but also plays a significant role in both grip and durability. Willcome points out that casing flex can be adjusted with air pressure: “That’s why OEMs typically specify higher inflation pressure on heavier bikes.” Tread compression and flex, on the other hand, are fixed with regard to the rubber’s compound and the tread pattern. Can a single tire spec really perform equally well on a motorcycle weighing 593 pounds as it does on one weighing 395 pounds—and vice versa?Bridgestone Battlax Sport Touring T33 on the Road

I’d ridden a handful of different motorcycles over the course of two days, each for an hour or two at a time, but during a photo stop in the hills of Pag, a rocky island in the Dalmatian archipelago, I had the opportunity to back-to-back two BMWs, the R 1250 RS and the R 1300 GS. The local police closed a mile stretch of pristine Croatian tarmac, minimizing our time sitting between photo passes and enabling photographers to lay down in the middle of the road to capture perfect shots. While traffic came to a halt, radiator fans humming in unison beneath the Dalmatian sun, I jumped on a free testbike, likely as not one I’d never even sat on before. I hastily made a riding game plan (“Expect every corner to be blind. Slow in, fast out.”). If I had the presence of mind, I’d adjust the clutch and brake levers to my tastes. Then it was clutch out, throttle wide open, two fingers covering the brakes. No time to acclimate to the motorcycle’s clutch feel, seating position, power delivery, brakes. I was too wide-eyed to care anyway, too preoccupied with blueprinting this succession of corners in my mind—and keeping my eyes peeled for photographers in red Bridgestone T-shirts laying in the middle of the road. At the end of the photo pass, adrenaline still pumping, I turned around in front of the policeman holding traffic, and couldn’t help but wonder if Bridgestone bought us a kind of amnesty; surely the policeman realized a motorcycle redlining through several gears propels it to extralegal speeds in a flash. Anyway, after all the journalists reassembled, we once again set off one by one in the opposite direction in order to gather at the original starting point and do it all over again on different motorcycles. It was like speed dating. But with more guardrails. And potentially surly Croat cops at either end.As my mind attempted to simultaneously filter and categorize the excess of input, I subconsciously overlooked the one critical constant: the tires. Upon reflection, I realized that was a very good sign.

After riding multiple bikes shod in the same rubber in such quick succession, the nature of the T33s was brought into focus. From side to side, the T33 is a neutral feeling tire, neither standing up nor falling into corners. Regardless of the weight, engine performance, or setup of the various motorcycles I tested, the DNA of the tires shined through, lending a sense of sure-footed composure to each one. The front T33 has a cross-belt construction to compensate for the tread pattern (more grooves equals less pattern stiffness), giving it loads of stability under hard braking but without feeling numb when leaned over. While the R 1300 GS may be the torque leader of the bunch, the Multistrada V4 S felt like the rowdiest, constantly lifting its front wheel under medium to hard acceleration. In other words, that rear tire was hooking up with no blinking TC lights to suggest it was fighting for grip.

On the final leg of testing, I was riding a BMW R 1250 RT when I passed a line of cars at a pretty good clip in order to leave time to brake for a fast-approaching corner. I had to brake hard on the 615-pound RT to scrub off enough speed. The tire loved being squashed into the pavement and did nothing unexpected as I released the brake lever coincident with the degree of my lean angle. On the highway, too, cruising at 130 mph (gosh, I love riding in Europe), the RT was perfectly stable.

Admittedly, we had perfect riding conditions—ideal for having fun, but less than ideal for testing wet grip and cold-weather handling—but the tires handled impeccably. Several of us even began to toy with the idea of spooning a set of T33s on our sportier bikes. Super grippy hypersport tires are probably wasted on the not-super-twisty roads on which most of us accumulate the majority of our miles. I suspect many riders believe that the perceived stickiness of a pure sports tire is like having extra insurance: “You may not always need it, but you’ll be grateful for it when you do.” That line of thinking is somewhat flawed, however. Equating “soft” with grippy and “hard” with durable-but-not-so-grippy is an oversimplification—one that, on the plus side, probably bolsters the hypersport tire market. Willcome says, “People always ask: ‘How can you get more wear without sacrificing traction?’ The answer is: You invent a better compound. The stronger the compound the less it’s going to wear. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harder. If you think about it, you can have a soft compound that stretches and breaks, or you can have a soft compound that stretches and stretches, and when you let go, it comes back. People always want to break it down to hard compounds and soft compounds, but it’s so much more complex than that.”How Did Bridgestone Do It?

Let’s consider the T33 rear tire first. The rear T33 received a tweak to construction, but still uses Bridgestone’s monospiral belt, in which a single cord is wound around the circumference of the tire like fishing line around a reel. Compared to a more complex multi-belt tire, monospiral construction is very light, generating less heat during operation and thereby extending lifespan. Since the cords are consistent with the direction of travel, they help minimize the centrifugal growth of the tire, maintaining their profile for consistent, predictable handling in elevated temperatures. Like the T32, the T33 rear is a dual-compound tire, the center portion being the harder—make that “more wear-resistant”—compound of the two. The big news on the rear, however, is the application of a newly developed, wear-resistant polymer. For the front tire, Bridgestone opted for a cross-belt construction, in which overlapping cords radiate at an angle from the centerline, similar to a bias-ply tire. According to Bridgestone, stabilizing the casing shape in this way improves durability and makes the tire suitable for heavier motorcycles. The T33’s front compound is identical to the T32.

Both tires use a new tread pattern that optimizes the land-to-sea ratio (the ratio of tread-less to treaded area of the tire). In essence, by merely changing the shape of the grooves, Bridgestone was able to increase the amount of rubber on the road at a given lean angle. Compared to slick rubber, patterns weaken tread rubber causing unwanted flex and a lower threshold before the tire begins to slide. Pattern stiffness, that is how much the groove moves in relation to the rest of the tread, is critical to both outright traction and wear. The more a groove moves, the more it wears. Ultimately, Bridgestone’s development is in the service of safety.“Tire safety is Bridgestone’s top priority,” Willcome says. “Our design process results in a robust construction to increase tire durability. Not all riders maintain their inflation pressure as well as they should, so our designs try to accommodate some of those real world conditions to maximize safety.”Is Bridgestone’s T33 Tire So Good You Don’t Think About It?

Since there’s a trade-off between ultimate grip and durability, sport-touring tires have to walk a fine line. Burning through half a rear tire on the way from, say, London to Split, isn’t an option for a sport-touring tire. At the same time, the point of touring on a motorcycle like a Multistrada V4 S is to ride it like a sportbike, to sample the buffet of corners, curves, and kinks resulting from the budgetary constraints of road builders of the second world for whom it isn’t an option to blow up half a mountain to connect a couple of villages with a straight road. What we want is grip. Lots and lots of it. Rain-or-shine grip. Leaned-over grip. Greasy-roundabout grip. Corner exit grip. Throttle-pinned grip. What we want is a buffet of grip to pair with our buffet of corners. We want stability. We want effortless, predictable turn-in. We want tires with a broad operating temperature zone.Most of all, we don’t want to even think about our tires. Even though I was riding along the Dalmatian Coast with the express purpose of testing Bridgestone’s Battlax T33, the truth is, they were the last thing on my mind. I ignored them, forgot about them, or completely took them for granted. Which is exactly what I want out of a tire.

Gearbag:Helmet: Arai Contour-XJacket: Rev’It Echelon GTXPants: Rev’It Echelon GTXGloves: Rev’It VolcanoBoots: Xpd X-Venture H2OutAirbag: Alpinestars Tech-Air 5