I am after a 200/50/18 or 200/55/18 Rear tire, 99% is highway work and in the dry so long tire life is more important than anything else.

Any suggestions

 

 

 

 

 

Most 18 x 200 tyres are sports tyres, I get about 8000k out of the metzeler ME 880, same from the Avon venom

Michelin commander2 is advertised as a cruiser specific tyre and I believe they have good wear from what I have read (on their site, so of coarse they're gunna say that), do some research yourself on these maybe and see what others think who have run them. I know i'll be asking the questions soon so maybe you could kick it off?
I am currently running a night dragon (perelli) 200/55/17 on my fxst got just over 7k on it and reckon ive got less than 1000ks to go.
whilst im very happy with traction capabilities I thought it would last a little longer. Just fitted a ND to the front last week will be interesting to see what sought of k's I get from it.
I'll more than likely have a crack at the commander 2's next time around and see how long it takes to fuck a set of those.
My mechanic told me H.D are going to be factory fitting commander 2's on their bikes when the Dunlop contract expires . We'll see ay.
Good luck and let us know the outcome and satisfaction rating.
By the way what are you running on the rear now and how many k's did you get from it. Just curious

DAGGS/FLIPDOG. at the moment I am running with Perelli ND's on my Sporty and luv them but after I do the 200 conversion I will need a 200/18 tyre for it. I was hoping for better than 8k out of the rear. Any one running a Michelin? or recommend a longer wearing cruiser type tyre

I'm happy with the 8000 as I'm extremely happy with the grip, that's more important to me

Michelin commanders dont come in 200/18 size, only in 200/17..................

Yeah I thought that too

yeah, I fucked up, my rear is 200/55/17 on my softy not 18, I have re-edited my post to reflect that/

Maybe I should of asked which 200/50/18 rear tyre will last the longest,

I don't think you'll get much more than 8k from any rear hoop. Just got 15300 from my front Metz too

Daggs; when I got this bike it had 10,500 on it with the original Dunlop tyres still in good nick, I put another 6K on them. That is a total of 16K twice as much as your 8000. Is it because the 200 type tyre does not wear well. Like I said in the intro, most of my riding is on good country roads where the speed limit is 110kph, most corners are not posted but the ones that are, most are rated at 85kph for a car so it is a breez on a bike. Over the last 2 months I have put over 2000ks on the clock and my GPS tells me that my total average speed is 89kph. That includes going to town each week and a tour of the Adelaide Northern beaches last week sitting on about 40 kph most of the time with a few of other riders. As you can see it does not crawl around.
I have only had personal experience with 2 types of modern tyres, the Dunlops that came on the bike that seemed good and the Perelli that seem so much better.
For me it's all about "who many Ks" not "how fast it will go around a corner".

Any other riders getting more than 8000 out of a rear 200 tyre?

Thanks guys for all the help. Oh well, it looks like I will have a chance to find out for myself, I just won a Dunlop Elite 3 on fleebay.
If I had to do it all over again I would have gone with a 17" late model wheel with 1" axles. Live and learn I guess.

Yes as stated most of the 18" 200 wide are sport tyres and therefore softer. That's why I run them, because they are softer as I ride pretty hard and want the grip they give. They are cheap really so if I have to spend $300 on a tyre every 18 months or two years it doesn't bother me at all.

But I have never heard of a stock rear tyre lasting 16k. My stock rear I changed at 6k when I did the 200 mod and it was nearly bald, maybe had another 1000 in it maybe not.

Fronts yes can last 14 or 16 k, not saying a rear can't but it must have been ridden very conservatively.

It would be interesting to see what others get out of fronts and fears, stock dunlops and other brands.

I really thought my milages were pretty standard

Just read you post again and for me it's a bit different, I and the guys I ride with are in to quite spirited riding.
From the way you were saying you ride, you might get a few more thousand k's out of a Metz 880 than i do but you still won't get 16000 from a rear with one.
Let's look at it another way, how many k's do you do a year?

Looks like you are doing quite a few k's per year.
Maybe look into a dual compound tyre but from memory they don't come in the size you specified