Tire confusion - fitting/different tires on front/rear

[The549]

Will if fit? Will it float? Will it blend?

My rims are 17" x 2.5", and 18" by 3.5"

The stock tires are 110/80-17 and 140/70-18, but the tires currently fitted are 110/80-17 and 130/80-18.

I'm having a hard time finding tires that fit online with any reasonable speed - so far I've found THIS for the front and THIS for the back. This would be the same as my current tires.

I would take off my rims and have the professionally mounted or do it myself. Would these work? Is there a quicker way to find tires that fit (other than click on each manufacturer, then each tires model, then select front/back, then look at sizes, then do it all over again, and again...arg!). Bikebandit's OEM tires are $150 and $200 for front and rear.

Thanks a lot for any help!

[Sev]

Go to a shop, tell them what you need/want. They will help you look through a parts catalogue and pick out appropriate tires.

Some shops will not mount a tire that you did not buy from them. You will however save money if you remove the entire wheel from the bike and take it in to the shop. Some places have a flat rate for a tirechange/balance that is rather low ($30 is the lowest I've seen), while you might get charged up to 1.5 hours ($100 an hour) to do a single wheel if you bring in the whole bike.

$200 for a tire isn't really that much when you consider how much more complex they are/need to be then a car tire. And when you take into account the fact that you only have two of them, so if you have one tire go out... you're basically fuckered.

Say you make $10 an hour at whatever job you're doing. And you need one new tire. We're going with the rear for ease of calculations and because they wear out faster. That means it'll take you about 20 hours work to pay for the tire. Then again, you can probably get 10000 miles out of the tire? Obviously this depends on your riding style. So lets say you were doing an outrageous 100mph the entire time. That's still 100 hours of use for the output of 20 hours labour. A good deal in my opinion... of course I'm happy if I break even most of the time 1 hour labour for 1 hour fun.

[mydlyfkryzis]

Sounds like you have a Honda 750 Nighthawk (1991-2003). Same size tires.

The best replacements in the correct size are Bridgestone Battlax 045.

They come in the exact OEM size (110/80-18 front, 140/70-17 rear). Most of us with Nighthawk 750's are happy with the performance and handling of these tires. They are dual compound (harder compound in middle, softewr on sides) for long life in the center, and good traction on curves.

I have over 4K miles on mine now and they hardly look used.

[flynrider]

Sounds like you have a Honda 750 Nighthawk (1991-2003). Same size tires.

Ha! That's what I was thinking, but if you look closely at his post, he's got the 17 inch wheel on the front and the 18 inch on the back. Our Nighthawks are the other way around.

But you are right. The BT-45s are exact fit and excellent for the nighthawk. I just turned 7K miles on my set and couldn't be happier.