Recently Bridgestone have launched the successor to the BT016 - the creatively titled BT016 Pro. Don't let the name fool you though, the Battlax BT016 Pro is more than just an evolution of the BT016, it’s a total redesign and no includes several technologies from Bridgestones race winning Moto GP tyres, and the excellent BT023.

The technology

Both the front and the rear tyre are multi-compound tyres using 3LC, or 3 layer compound. More importantly, the tyre uses an RC Polymer compound found in Moto GP tyres. RC Polymer allows Silica, which possesses excellent wet grip and low rolling resistance to be blended with butadiene rubber, which has outstanding low temperature flexibility, wear resistance and flex fatigue.

The result? The the Bridgestone BT016 Pro works better from cold, the tyre heats up more quickly, it has improved dry performance, it has massively improved wet performance, the grip remains constant throughout the thread life and the tyre lasts much much longer, over 50% longer on front quarters.

Riding

To prove the capabilities of the new BT016 Pro, Bridgestone chose to launch the new tyre at the Silverstone south circuit using 176bhp Honda CBR1000RR Fireblades. The performance of the tyre was astounding. After just a single warm up lap at a moderate pace (the track was relatively cold at around 6c air) the tyre was ready for hard use. Extremely stable over the rougher sections of track, the tyres provided excellent dry grip over lap after lap of hard abuse without showing the usual signs of overheating. It would be easy to forget these aren't a track day tyre when pushing on, such is the level of grip!

After a near faultless performance on track, the tyre had one final surprise for us at the end of the day - after hundreds of hard track miles the tyre had coped remarkably well, and looked barely worn at all!

With all the extra performance and mileage coming at no price increase over the outgoing BT-016, the BT-016 Pro looks to be one of the bike tyres of 2011.

Video

The BT016 Pro will be launched in the following sizes:

120/70ZR17 (58W)
180/55ZR17 (73W)
190/50ZR17 (73W)
190/55ZR17 (75W)