The reason I asked was to see if you knew all the risks. I'm not one to get in the way of people who want to break the rules, or blaze uncharted grounds. I do however I expect that mature, responsible people will make sure they are aware of all the real and potential risks before they do so.
And from your reply, you clearly aren't aware of all the risks. I suspect most darksiders aren't either. The mere fact that you guys defend your choice with gems of reasoning like "I tried it and it worked", or "millions of cumulative miles and no blowout yet", or "look, I videoed the rear tire!" suggested the depth of your ignorance all along.
The most obvious risk that you didn't mention is that in certain conditions, rear grip is absolutely compromised. Even straight up and down accelerating or braking can be worse on a car tires, if there's standing water for instance.
Even between different models of MC tires, there are a range of different handling characteristics to be found. Some designs favour the wet, others dry, or gravel. Some favour grip, others longevity. It can cause some unpleasant suprises if you mix and match them front and rear just to find out one day when you really need the grip, that the bike's balance is completely different on one surface than another. With a car tire, you can't even pinpoint where it sits on the spectrum of handling characteristics enough to have any idea of what behaviour to expect!
Another risk is cornering grip, which of course will clearly be compromised as well. There's a sequence of photos out on the net somewhere of a darksider at the Gap losing the rear end of his cruiser going into a curve. I've never seen that on a bike with a proper rear tire.
Losing grip doesn't have to happen a lot to be dangerous. If a tire was found to be responsible for crashes only once out of every million cumulative miles (when used as intended), that tire manufacturer would make headline news and would be sued into oblivion. Remember Ford and Firestone? So even designated passenger car tires can be unsuitable for certain applications (it's not like those tires were used exclusively on Explorers, but those are the ones that failed the most). So the relationship between a vehicle and it's tires is a bit symbiotic; they interact with each other and affect each other's behaviour. An you're saying that a CT on a MC is a good idea. Hmmmmmm, OK.
Another risk is the loss of predictable behaviour. It could be extra stable when you don't need it to be, like in a fast emergency manoeuver, and instable when you need it to be stable, such as transitioning onto the throttle (or brakes) in a corner.
Manufacturers have all sorts of precise instruments and specifications established from decades of experience, built on expertise from proven, accomplished riders. They could not design a safe tire without these methods. They know exactly how a tire needs to behave from hundreds of different perspectives. Replacing all that with a standard such as "darksiders have said..." is worth exactly zero in terms of reassurance. Do you even know what UTQG is, or how to use it? Do your darksider friends know? UTQG isn't engineering talk. It's information intended for consumers to use, so we can make a more educated car tire buying decision. Have any of them ever spoken about it when recommending their Rikens and Generals? I imagine it had more to do with what was on sale at Wal-Mart.
Another risk is that of structural failure. Imagine the following scenario: You're on a holiday ride, with your wife and a few weeks clothes in the back, cruising down a nice empty interstate at a fair clip . Your pace is high because you're enjoying the speed, there are no hazards, you are looking forward to getting to your destination and it's a blazing hot day so a stronger breeze helps keep you cool (which is why you're both riding squid). You've been heading for the hills for an hour, and the first sign of the twisties that you have been looking forward to appears as a mild sweeper up ahead. Nothing challenging yet, especially since you run a bit lower pressure on your rear car tire to help give a bigger contact patch in the corners.
Does this sound good to you? Because anyone with a bit of tire knowledge who is reading this is cringing at the idea of what comes next, they can see it coming like the scenes of a bad Hollywood movie. It is the perfect scenario for a rear tire blowout. High loads, high speeds, hot weather, low tire pressure. Bam.
I give darksiders full credit for trying something new, but from there to go and claim it's safe is near lunacy. If they at least showed that they knew the risks, tried to mitigate them and simply accepted the risk they couldn't control, then I could at least respect that.
As it stands, they seem to be living in a bubble of ignorance, sheltering themselves amongst their "enlightened" kin so they don't have to give any serious critical thought to what they are doing.
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