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1980 GS850GL tire size sanity check

eil

eil

Forum Sage
Hello,

So I'm a couple months off from purchasing new tires, but I'm trying to get my ducks in a row. (And by ducks I mean budget.) I'm new to motorcycle tires but I've been doing some research and would like some confirmation that I'm not about to do something dumb. (Which is not to say that I won't anyway...)

At first, I was only going to replace the front tire. The rear tire is a Pirelli Speed Demon (or Sport Demon? Can't remember...). It looks like brand-new and actually appears to have zero miles on it. Still smooth and has all the little nubbins. However, on the advice of someone here I took a look at the date code. That was a wise move. It was manufactured in 2002. :(

According to the manual, the tire sizes for this bike are:

Front: 3.50H19 (90mm)
Rear: 4.50H17 (120mm)

I've seen plenty of recommendations for Shinko 230s and they will probably be within my budget. Motorcycle-superstore.com carries them at what looks like an affordable price. Only issue is that they don't sell 90 and 120 sizes for 19 and 17 rims respectively. I'd have to go up 10mm on each one. So this is what I'm planning to order:

Front: 100/90V-19 $58
Rear: 130/90V-17 $72

Are those the right sizes to get for this bike?

Thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:
Those are correct.

Some think all the L models have a 16" rear, but our '80 850GL has a 17".
 
Yep, further confirmation that those tires in those sizes will work.
icon_thumbsup.gif


My wife's bike is an '82 850L, so has the 16" rear tire, but everything fits and works well.

An added bonus of going to the 100 front tire is that it gets the speedometer accuracy within a window of believability. :-k
Before the tire change, an indicated 60 MPH showed as about 54 on the GPS. After the tire change, its about 58 or 59 MPH. :D

.
 
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