We have a lot of Indian tyre manufacturing companies like Ceat, JKTyre, Apollo, Birla etc, but MRF is the most renowned and unlike a few out there who are known because of their aggressive marketing (and not necessarily for their products), MRF has always left us impressed by the quality of their tyres – be it cars or bikes!
In the recent times, we have seen a lot of new and more powerful motorcycles getting launched and quite clearly, the age-old run of the mill rubber fell short of expectations. To fulfil this growing demand for performance tyres, MRF recently launched radial tyres for motorcycles under their Revz range and became the first Indian manufacturer to do so. They contacted us for a review of these and we obviously obliged.
At first we thought we will test them on an R15 v2 but later we decided we will plonk them on the most powerful motorcycle in India under 3 Lakhs – the RC390 to understand how close can we get to ‘the best’ OE Metzelers!
We got fresh new Revz C1 and FC1 tyres shipped to our tester Shrey Sunil in Mumbai who has been riding on them on his new KTM RC390 for the last 550 odd kms and more than a week. While we will live with them for many months now and a detailed review along with its comparison with Metzelers will follow in sometime, today we will share our first impressions and answer the question – if they really are worth considering!
Specs:
- Front – MRF Revz FC1 : 110/70 R17
- Rear – MRF Revz C1 : 150/60 R17
This is exactly the same OE size which the Duke 390 and RC390 come equipped with in India and hence they are a direct fit.
During these 550 kilometers, we have used these tyres on various types of testing roads which include dry tarmac, soft to hard cornering and thanks to this being monsoons, we have plenty of grounds to examine their wet grip as well. Let us quickly talk about them one by one…
DRY GRIP:
These are relatively medium compound tyres and the grip offered by them on dry surfaces is, to put it in two words ‘simply superb‘! It is so surprising that if you give these tyres to a layman without informing him about the different rubber, he will NOT realize at first the difference, it so close to OE!
High speed straight runs and braking is very impressive and these are the best tyres we have ever ridden from MRF so far.
Rating: 8/10
WET GRIP:
On the contrary to what you read a few seconds back, these Revz on wet are not confidence inspiring! On high speed straight runs, if there is decent amount of water on the roads, the bike slides and sways disturbing your control. We felt as if the treads are not able to splash that water off the road ably. Hard braking in the wet also tends to take away your control on the bike and rather than enjoying your ride, you tend to focus on saving your day.
Rating: 5/10
CORNERING:
The Revz C1 & FC1 have a very similar curve at the edges like the Metzelers and hence cornering doesn’t take too much of an effort (unlike the other renowned tyre we tested). The curved shape assists cornering surprisingly well on dry surfaces and the behavior is confidence inspiring, however, on the wet the bike slides and sways and lower your chances of aggressive corrections if you go wide into a corner!
Rating: 7/10
LIFE:
Though it is a little premature to talk about life at this moment, but considering that these are not very soft compound tyres (like Metz), we hope their life is around 20-30 percent more.
Other Motorcycles Which Can Use these Tyres
- Duke 200
- RC200
- GT250R
- Benelli TNT 300
PRICE & VFM-ness:
- MRF Revz FC1: Rs 2589
- MRF Revz C1: Rs 3462
For a pair of this rubber, you will need to spend Rs 6000 and when you compare this with Metzelers, the original rubber, there is a difference of a whooping Rs 10,000 (Metz cost approx 16,000). For this amount of money you can buy another set of MRF and a half which means the already high life gets almost tripled! And considering that MRF has a very wide distribution network, sourcing them should be easier as well.
Rating: 10/10
First Review Verdict:
We did not share the prices upfront because then you would have started considering them as cheap alternatives for Metzelers and this, neither we nor MRF wanted us to portray. The good thing is that the company is confident of their product.
So, if you have run out of your OE rubber on your Duke 390 or RC390, and have had a hard time sourcing the Metz, you should give the new MRF tyres a chance. They are brilliant in dry surfaces and at a fraction of a cost of the Metz (or even most of the other options), they are no compromise at all! But yes, if you are a very spirited rider, your major traversing is on wet roads and have about 8 percent of the original motorcycle cost to re-spend on tyres, you can avoid them; but this percentage of folks, as we see, is not very much….
