AVON TYRES recently invited Visordown to test some of the company's range of motorcycle tyres at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground, Leicestershire. So we sent Jon Urry along to find out what was on offer.
“Since we stopped racing we have effectively virtually become unknow,” admitted Peter McNally, Avon’s technical product manager.
“We only have about a 5% share in the UK market, mainly because we aren’t OE equipment on any bikes.”
The problem Avon has is that riders form habits. If your bikes comes on a particular brand of tyre then riders tend to stick with it, or swap to their favoured brand when a tyre change is needed.
“OE tyres usually cost the tyre company money, they are loss-leaders, but you hope the rider will buy your tyre when it comes to replacement time, which off-sets the loss,” explains McNally.
“At Avon we can’t afford to take that initial financial hit and we sell as many tyres as we can make.” Which is the first surprise. Despite being owned by American company Cooper Tires, Avon is still based in the UK at Melksham (next to the river Avon, hence the name) and all its bike tyres are made in this factory – all 500,000 of them! That’s around 1,000 bikes tyres churning off the production line a day.
Considering they are a British company why don’t they sell more tyres in the UK. “Because we don’t race people see us as a second rate company,” admits McNally. “It’s hard to get our message across to riders. We have found that our tyres are as good, if not better, than the competition.”
A bold claim, but as part of the day we tested a few different types of Avon tyres and they did perform very well, almost surprisingly so. We will be sticking a few sets on our longterm test bikes so keep an eye on the magazine to see how they perform, but on the evidence of the day (the Fazer 1000 pictured was on very worn Storm 2 touring rubber) it may be worth considering Avon when it comes to renewing your tyres.
What's your experience of modern Avon tyres? Let us know.
