Dual Compound Tires

I was having a chat with someone the other day and the topic of dual compound street tires came up, particularly the Michelin Pilots. I have always been under the impression that the CT2s were the same tire as the other pilots until you got out to the chicken strips, and that's where the soft compound came into play. My friend disagreed and said that the entire tire is of a harder compound than their single compound Pilots while the chicken strips are of the softer compound.

Can anyone help settle this? Thanks in advance.

If my memory is correct....your both right.

Hard center/soft shoulders are what you use for the street and the occasional track days.
The opposite are mainly for the track. I think this teck was developed to get the most use out of the whole tire.

I know that this was when the first dual compounds came out, and that was about the time I sold my last sportbike. Not sure what Michelin are doing now with the Pilot Powers.

As has been said, a lot of these dual compound road tyres have a harder middle and softer shoulders, but I'm not sure what these hard and soft levels are relative to, and this is so the middle lasts as long as possible, because on the road you probably spend more time on that than the edges, and then the edges are soft so they have more grip than they would if they were also a harder compound because you spend less time on them to get/keep them warm.

I'm currently using Pirelli Diablo Corsa III on my 04 R1 and they are really good. I was pleased to finally get rid of the Dunlops that Yamaha decided would be the stock tyre on this bike and was very impressed with these Pirellis right from the start. The bike feels really planted in corners.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (mjpartyboy @ Apr 11 2009, 04:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I'm not sure what these hard and soft levels are relative to
That's what I can't seem to figure out.