I am never one to shy away from a challenge. Maybe I'm just ballsy, maybe I'm a bit of an idiot, maybe it's Maybelline...
So when the weather says "screw you biker, here's some serious precipitation to damped your day" I get geared up and go out anyway. Hell, if the road racing boys can kick in a downpour at 180+ I'm sure I'll be ok. But you need good tires to still enjoy what the weather throws at you, well you do if you're not blessed with living in SoCal or the south of France.
Here in the UK you have to play the weather hand you're dealt and if I never rode in bad weather I'd only be out on my bike for about 3 weeks every year. I sure as hell ain't a 3000 dry miles a year kind of biker.
With winter fast rolling up on me it was time to scrap the ageing Pirelli Stradas that came with my CBR 600 and put something more capable on the rims.
I did the usual of researching my butt off and watching and reading so may reviews of tires that it just became a blur of manufacturers and rubber hoops. I was like a BDSM addict in a gimp suit shop; how could I possibly pick just one from a seemingly endless array of quality rubber?
I needed something I could trust.
My favourite motor-sport of all time is motorcycle road racing. I mean, I'm down for ANY motorcycle racing to be honest, from enduro to supermoto, British Superbikes, motoGP... but road racing is the pinnacle for me. One manufacturer is tied pretty tightly with the roads and that's Metzeler, a subsidiary of Pirelli who acquired the German company in the 1980s. But make no mistake, Metzeler are their own company and they specialise in only one thing; making motorcycle tires. Which means 100% of their R&D time goes into making bonza rubber hoops for your crotch rockets, petrol powered sofas, long way downers and braap machines.
The one thing that I like a lot about Metzeler is that their rubber is designed around road racing which is arguably the most demanding type of racing for a tire to have to deal with. Which means even if you're only seeing 2% of that development get into a road tire it's arguably 2% more than what you might get from another manufacturer and at full tilt that 2% means a lot.
This was important for me as a UK rider having to deal with terrible UK roads and worse UK weather. I needed a tire able to deal with those things, not a smart, born with a silver spoon on the race track tire, but a cope with anything dragged up through the roads tire. That's what Metzeler offer.
In the end it was a no-brainer, above the rest stood out the most recently developed sport touring tire (in 2017 when I bought them) and that was a shiny new set of Metzeler Roadtec 01s.
So what is a Roadtec 01?
To put it briefly Roadtec 01s are arguably one of the best sport touring hoops out there. They're dual compound rear and 100% silica front provide not only mechanical grip on the surface but chemical grip as well (as indeed all tires do these days). What this means is that when the rain comes you don't have to slow down so much and can still have a lot of fun. 
Metz put a lot of R&D time into the Roadtec 01 to make it capable in inclement conditions, provide great mileage while also retaining more than a semblance of the 'sport' in 'sport-touring'. The Roadtecs to this end provide progressive tread channeling that thins as it gets toward the edge of the tire to provide more absolute grip when leaning further in the dry with less squirm and uncertainty. And with separate reservoir divots between but not linked to the main tread it provides exceptional water clearing without making the carcass too flexible. 
The tire profile isn't what you'd call "flickable" but was more than sporty enough for me to keep up with a friend on his 600RR on sportier Dunlops through the turns and they never felt vague even when pushed hard under braking. Sure there is more flex in the tire carcass under heavy loading of course and the tread will compress and move around a bit, but it did so progressively and predictably, not in an unnerving way. In fact under heavy brake loading the front, especially in the dry, really grabs the road and offers pretty decent feedback for a sport touring tire and not much changes in the wet either which keeps the Roadtec 01 predicable and well seated when you need it to be.
The Roadtec 01 is a superb all round hoop for long miles, hooning down B-roads and riding with confidence inspiring grip in the rain.
Who are Roadtec 01's aimed at?
This is a real easy question to answer. Metzeler have aimed this hoop at pretty much everyone. From tourers to classic riders - Metz make the Roadtec 01 in Xply sizes - to cruisers and heavyweight bikes to sport riders who don't shy away from the wet. They have truly covered the playing field. If you want smiles for miles this is superb hoop to put on any road bike.
How well do they work in reality?
In the UK we have to pay a vehicle excise license fee, or 'road tax'. It's some kind of ransom payment levied on all UK motorists who want to use Her Majesties public highways. Though this differs from usual ransom payments in that you hand over the cash but don't seem to get much in return. Our roads melt in the summer and fall to bits in the winter.
Most of our highways and byways are a patchwork of half done re[air jobs by underpaid road workers levied by councils who care less about a 10cm deep pot hole right on a corner than Yodel give about delivery times.
So I head up to my favourite spot here on the south coast of the UK to take in a collection of 5 roads that make up what I affectionately call The Beachy Head Loop.
To me, it's my own little Ulster GP. Seven and a half miles of prime B-road, narrow in places, winding, undulating, bumpy and not much to catch any mistakes except walls, trees and fences oh... and a cliff edge.
So I rode it. Fast. In the day, at night, in the rain, in the wind, in a storm one time at night as well. How did the Roadtecs fair?
Wow. Is all I can say, I had grip to spare in the turns and under braking, they felt sure footed no matter what the weather was doing or how slick the road looked covered in water and grit and other crud. They were completely un-phased by it allowing me to concentrate on having a good time. After my previous tires never feeling surefooted even in the dry it really lifted a weight off my mind to simply get down to riding and trusting the tires to do the job.
What made the Roadtecs special to me was the shear grip I had under me in the wet, I've had tires that are always 'feeling it out' when you get on the twisties in a downpour but the Roadtecs cleared water exceptionally well allowing the silica rich compound to grab the road and you to go faster and lean further with confidence. 
All of this was also well accentuated by the profile of the tires which while of course not being as steep as the M7RR (Metzeler's intermediate sports/road tire) still allow you to get the bike swiftly through the turns. It felt like a good middle ground in fact; something built for the commute and the day to day in all weathers but also built for burning B-roads when the mood grabs you to go full on Guy Martin on your way home from work on a rainy night.  |
| Crap weather.... What crap weather? |
This what the Metz hoops are made for and boy are they made for it.
Not once did I feel unsure about pushing them, and the way the tires dug in when I tried hard braking right down to a standstill from 30, 40, 50, 70mph+ just inspired so much confidence to really throw the anchors down if ever I needed too in a true emergency. Steadily increasing initial braking effort, I made those tires work for it and they replied by just digging in and stopping me to the point where the tail of the bike was hovering, even in the wet. Even snapping the brakes on at low speeds to temp a skid they really resisted the urge to give up traction. They required more braking effort that anyone would really ever put through them to force them to break away.
In the dry it was an equally confidence inspiring ride. With the tires up to road riding temps quickly they gave oodles of grip allowing me to brake later and turn sharper while always feeling sure footed. With Roadtecs under me I felt so much more confident on the bike knowing I had the traction when I needed it, especially in the wet which is a real thorn in the side of biking generally, but the Roadtec 01's brought the fun back in the rain.
If you want a confidence inspiring tire that offer great mileage with a sporty edge inspired by the toughest road races in the world coupled with shed loads of grip in the wet and the dry there is only one set of tires you need;
Roadtec 01's.
