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New Night Dragon GT: 20% more mileage

Pirelli’s newest offering for U.S. cruiser market takes next step

 

Pirelli has launched the Night Dragon GT, a new tire for touring/cruiser motorcycles, into the U.S. market, offering the same legendary performance of the Night Dragon with 20 percent more mileage.

Using an advanced “Full Carbon Black” compound and new carcass materials, the Night Dragon GT provides an even longer lasting ride, with enhanced feedback and handling that Pirelli tires and Night Dragon are famous for.

The Night Dragon GT adds 20 percent more mileage for touring/cruiser bikes, Pirelli says.
The Night Dragon GT adds 20 percent more mileage for touring/cruiser bikes, Pirelli says.

The new Night Dragon GT extends the legacy of the Night Dragon, a premium tire line Pirelli introduced in 2008 for cruiser, touring and custom motorcycle users looking for quality mileage, style and performance — and at a very competitive price.

These riders want better traction, grip and handling than the average cruiser touring tire can offer to match their bikes’ power. Cruiser riders are long distance travelers who want to enjoy their trip on highways and feel the adrenaline rush on twisty roads.

The new Night Dragon GT extends this enjoyment, and offers up to 20 percent more mileage. To reach this target, Pirelli engineers revamped the tire structures and compound, while preserving the same profiles and tread pattern to maintain handling and water evacuation.

The new compound of Night Dragon GT features a “Full Carbon Black” formulation that combines different types of thermo reactive polymers to combine high mileage and grip. From a chemical point of view, this is a challenging task given the different characteristics of these polymers, which is akin to combining oil with water. Thanks to Pirelli’s unique patented mixing process, combining special resins and plastifying agents, our engineers achieved a compound breakthrough. The result is a compound with a high homogeneity level that warms up quickly thanks to the Carbon Black, as well as delivering grip, wet performance and high mileage.

A new structure has been developed to support the innovative compound described above and fully express its potential. The new structure features a different geometry of the carcass plies and higher belt tension. Additionally, new aramid breakers provide a stiff yet flexible carcass, with a high resistance to stress.

The Night Dragon GT has the same profile as the original Night Dragon. It features a wide single radius contour that ensures a progressive behavior when entering the bend and to support the bike at every lean angle. It also shapes the contact area correctly from straight to full lean, for a crown area to ensure maximum traction.

The Night Dragon GT maintains the original Night Dragon tread pattern design to guarantee high performance and excellent water drainage and mileage needs of these riders.

The Night Dragon tread design’s strength is its optimization of the contact patch area, offering ideal contact between the bike and road in every possible riding condition to deliver the power to the ground.

Grooves are concentrated exactly where needed, putting more rubber on the ground to ensure traction and grip in every situation. The central rib is always in contact with the road surface, providing the right grip, feel and a stable tread area for higher mileage.

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On the mid shoulder there is a small additional groove to optimize the lean in, ensuring mechanical grip while maintaining a neutral and predictable behavior. The unique groove design helps eliminate irregular wear.

The Night Dragon GT rear sizes and their availability as follows:

170/80 B 15 M/C 77H TL — available now

150/80 B 16 M/C 77H TL Reinf — available now

180/65 B 16 M/C 81H Reinf TL — Dec./Jan.

MU85 B 16 M/C 77H TL — available now

200/55 R 17 M/C 78V TL — Dec./Jan.

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