With over 90 years in enterprise, Bridgestone, the main Nippon tire producer, has a hand in each conceivable automotive utility, from the world’s racetracks and public streets to its farms and quarries. Bringing a wealth of expertise in bike racing, the agency continues to develop new merchandise to satisfy the calls for of more and more highly effective road bikes. Thanks to improved manufacturing methods and intelligent chemistry, the Bridgestone Battlax sequence has come a great distance since its introduction 4 a long time in the past. The Hypersport S23 tire is the most recent to put on the Battlax moniker and demonstrates simply how far the know-how has come.
The rubber alchemists at Bridgestone have been exhausting at work because the Hypersport S22 debuted in 2019, and TopSpeed despatched me to San Diego to check its successor. The Battlax Hypersport S23 is a radial, high-performance bike road tire for sportbikes, nakeds, and sports-tourers. It options Bridgestone’s most superior all-weather street-oriented compounds and a brand new sipe design to supply improved traction in moist and dry circumstances with out compromising tread life. Available in a variety of sizes, the S23 is the OE tire adorning quite a few new bikes, together with the epic Yamaha MT-09 SP.
Improved Grip And Durability
Using a newly developed compound and an up to date tread sample, Bridgestone claims to have overcome the age-old compromise between longevity and traction. “Staying with the standard technology, if you want more grip, you’re going to give up durability,” stated Keith Willcome, Bridgestone Americas’ Product Strategy and Business Development Manager. “And if you want more durability, you’re going to give up some grip.” Using the (already good) S22 as a testing benchmark, the group discovered that the scientifically superior S23 demonstrated considerably higher grip in moist and dry circumstances whereas additionally providing enhanced sturdiness. “To improve in every aspect without compromise,” Willcome added, “speaks to the technology and engineering that [went] into the tire.”
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Building On The S22’s Foundations
The newest iteration of its Hypersport tire builds on the foundations laid by its predecessors, the S21 and S22 tires. The S23 inherits Bridgestone’s High Tensile Super Penetrated Cord innovation to advertise high-speed stability and forestall blowouts by bettering thermal conductivity. It moreover advantages from the agency’s proprietary Mono Spiral (MS) Belt design, which employs a layer of circumferent cords, enhancing rotational stability and grip whereas decreasing the tire’s total weight.
Compounds For Corners
Like the S22, the S23 makes use of totally different compounds throughout the tire floor. The entrance tire’s three layers and the rear tire’s 5 optimize sturdiness on the heart and improve adhesion towards the perimeters to boost cornering efficiency. An replace to the compound utilized to the entrance tire’s shoulders and the rear tire’s outer edges includes a brand new system of resin parts, providing extra grip at excessive lean angles. Enhancements made to the Silica Rich compound utilized to the rear tire’s heart layer promise improved tread put on.
Using a Yamaha YZF R1, Bridgestone examined the S23 and S22 side-by-side on the Autopolis circuit in Japan. The up to date tires enabled the R1 to brake tougher and later into the corners and lay down extra energy on the exits, swiping practically 3 seconds off its predecessor’s lap time. That’s a major enchancment on a sub-two-minute lap.
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Enhanced Tread Pattern Design
Tire producers use the notion of a “Land-Sea Ratio” to explain the relative portion of tire floor space sacrificed to siping (water-funneling grooves), normally expressed as a proportion (not a ratio), and thus, confusingly, decreasing a tire’s siping and, due to this fact, rising the rubber in touch with the bottom lowers its Land-Sea Ratio. A decrease ratio additionally correlates to elevated tread stiffness, which improves its inherent stability and capability to carry a cornering line.
Reducing the siping minimize into the entrance S23 and, to a lesser extent, the rear S23’s mid-shoulder sections lowered its Land-Sea Ratio at reasonable lean angles. Bridgestone claims the brand new tread sample affords the optimum steadiness between water channeling and tread stiffness, bettering grip in dry and moist circumstances. Increased tread stiffness additionally performs a job in decreasing tread put on.
Get In The Pulse Groove
It could sound like an ‘80s dance craze, but Bridgestone’s Pulse Groove is a new technology fitted to the rear S23 tire. A tiny deflector situated on the heart of the rear tire’s elliptical sipes equalizes the water move throughout the groove to enhance drainage, which reduces the water stress on the contact patch, offering higher grip in moist circumstances. Under moist monitor testing on a BMW S 1000 RR, the S23 was 14% faster than the S22. Perhaps extra importantly for road riders, the S23 additionally managed a 3% enchancment in wet-stopping distances.
Road Testing In The Twisties
After strolling us by means of the science, Bridgestone laid on a collection of the most recent sportbikes and bare roadsters for a day of highway testing, all fitted with recent units of Battlax Hypersport S23 tires. Admittedly, evaluating a tire in isolation from its competitors is not precisely scientific, and very best circumstances, although welcome, ensured we wouldn’t be doing any moist using. Nevertheless, the twisting canyon roads crisscrossing the Laguna Mountains of Southern California supplied a really perfect proving floor for testing the brand new sportbike rubber.
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I alternated between three bare machines: The fantastic Triumph Street Triple 765, the much less manic however capable Suzuki GSX-8S, and the heavy-weight Indian FTR. The Street Triple’s glorious chassis affords impeccable dealing with, and with the tires warmed up, Triumph’s mid-sized monster devoured up the mountain roads main out to our lunch cease within the little city of Julian. Over-braking into unfamiliar corners had me greedy fistfuls of throttle on the apexes, and the grip on provide exiting the bends felt like a significant step up.
After lunch, I switched bikes with one other journalist and took off, with traction management (unintentionally) switched off, on the Suzuki. An solely new bike to me, the GSX-8S affords baggage of enjoyable and softer suspension. In the afternoon, we had the chance to run the identical glorious part of asphalt a number of occasions. With a bit native data acquired, I started carrying extra velocity into the corners, and the S23 is definitely a confidence-inspiring tire.
On the quicker uphill runs, the brand new Hypersports supplied distinctive suggestions, inspiring the boldness to check the bike to its fullest, and I dragged a peg on a couple of event. Even when using the heavier 1200 FTR, with its lazier geometry, the steering response was exact. With the sporty Indian realized over to the max, the S23s did not squirm and held a good line. The quick downhill runs offered a possibility to check the tires beneath heavy braking, and the sticky entrance S23 offered assured stability and management.
Bridgestone Battlax Hypersport S23 Tire Size Options
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Front |
Rear |
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120/70ZR17M/C (58W) TL |
160/60ZR17M/C (69W) TL |
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180/55ZR17M/C (73W) TL |
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190/50ZR17M/C (73W) TL |
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190/55ZR17M/C (75W) TL |
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200/55ZR17M/C (78W) TL |
Should You Buy The Battlax Hypersport S23?
Bridgestone’s Battlax Hypersport S23 tire represents a major leap ahead in bike tire know-how, skillfully balancing improved traction and sturdiness. The progressive developments in compound formulation and tread design not solely ship excellent grip and the boldness to push the boundaries but in addition promise elevated security in moist and dry circumstances. While a day’s using within the dry didn’t permit for evaluating the tire’s moist climate efficiency or longevity, Bridgestone’s in-house testing demonstrated enhancements in each. The outgoing S22 set a excessive bar. Nevertheless, on the race monitor or the open highway, the S23 is on the way in which to setting a brand new benchmark for sports activities riders in search of the last word in tire efficiency.
