Name: Pirelli Angel GT
Item: Pirelli Angel GT
Rating: 8
Author: Visordown

THAT'S me on the flight deck of Italian aircraft carrier, Cavour 550, on a Kawasaki Z1000SX on Pirelli's new Angel GT tyres: the start of a very unusual launch for what I thought would be a fairly normal tyre.

The Angel GT is, afterall, just a touring tyre. It is, according to Pirelli: 'the evolution of the Angel ST, stretching the concept of Sport Touring into Gran Turismo'.

The three words used to describe the Angel GT project brief are: safety, stability and mileage, nouns which are thrown around on every touring or sports-touring tyre launch, so not much that's new so far. Pirelli claim the Angel GT offers the best mileage in the segment (as tested by the independent Motorrad TestCenter, the place most tyre manufacturers go to).

As bikers, we're getting older and moving away from sportsbikes towards large nakeds, sports tourers and tourers. Pirelli and all the other tyre manufacturers for that matter, have taken note and that's why we have such a wide range of quality sports-touring tyres, from Bridgestone's BT-023 to Michelin's Pilot Road 3, Metzeler's Roadtec Z8 and more.

The Angel GT takes over from the Angel ST. I felt like this was a cushioner for a rock-solid tyre built for gargantuan touring motorcycles that boast engines bigger than those on most normal cars. The standard formula for a longer-lasting tyre is: use a compound that doesn't grip that well. It's that simple. Well, I think it used to be that simple.

Today, the focus has shifted from sticky rubber to sports touring, touring and 'real world' tyres. Long gone are the days when a tyre was either grippy but lasted a few miles or built for distance but horrendous in the wet. Back then, you could have one but not the other. Now it seems, you can have it all.

While the tread pattern looks similar to the Angel ST it has been designed to the channels flow from the centre to the outer edge of the tyre, designed to move water away faster. The profile has also been changed so it's now wider, with a 14% larger footprint when upright than on the Angel ST. Pirelli also claim the new profile allows the Angel GT to offer 5% more lean angle do to the profile of the tyre not dropping off a cliff on the edges.

The tyre's carcas is also stiffer which allows the rubber compounds on the edges to be softer. The front tyre is all one compound while the rear is two. The central compound is 70% silica; a harder rubber for higher mileage while the shoulders are 100% silica for better grip, especially in the wet.

Pirelli claim the Angel GT offers 30% more mileage than the Angel ST. Based on some sums on the back of a beermat and depending on your riding, you're looking at anything between 5,000 and 8,000 miles.

Essentially it's an Angel ST with better wear and wet weather characteristics.

So after all this talk of higher mileage and a stiffer carcas, the last place Pirelli would want to prove this tyre would be a track of some sort. You definitely wouldn't go to the handling circuit at the Nardo Test Center and you'd be mad to lay on a fleet of some of the least track-capable motorcycles on the market and let people like me out on them. Oh,that just happened.