Bridgestone S22 - Motorrad Magazine's Sports Tyre Test WINNER
Looking for new shoes for your sports bike? Look no further than Bridgestone’s Hypersport S22 tyres available at your local Bridgestone stockist now! The S22 is the new and improved S21, retaining the best from its older brother while adding new features for unrivalled performance. So, if you’re after the best performance on the road (and track) from your sports bike the S22 is built for you.
What is the S22 designed to do and who is it made for?
The S22 is recommended for riders who mostly enjoy sports riding. Generally, riders of supersport motorcycles who want a combination of performance in all conditions without sacrificing durability. The S22 is also ideal for getting into track racing or track days as you wouldn’t have to trailer your bike to the track.
Bridgestone’s ambition for the S22 was to add excellent wet performance to the best in class dry grip and handling tyre to raise the ultimate hypersport possibilities to a higher level. Their goal was to focus on contact feel and cornering performance to always feel connected with the road, all without sacrificing on the tyres wear life.
To achieve their product concept the S22 has received a newly developed tread pattern to increase the land/sea ratio in the shoulder area which offers increased amounts of edge grip reducing slippage towards the end of the contact area. It also adjusts the angle and alignment of the tread grooves which redistributes the working forces across the tyre making for lighter handling, improved feedback and optimal water drainage when riding in the wet. The S22 also boasts new compound changes, while still retaining the 5-Layer Compound structure in the rear. The new pattern design and compound changes increased cornering speed in the dry by 15% giving a 1.2% faster dry lap time along with a 5% faster wet lap time when tested by Bridgestone against the S21.
The new traction area compound is applied with optimised resin components in the mixture, improving the grip characteristics. Along with the new centre compound adopting fine silica generating a higher silica molecule ratio contacting the road. The technical upgrades of the S22 have shown performance enhancements in all areas.
The S22 front includes Bridgestone’s 3LC (3-Layer Compound) and Silica Rich technologies, while the rear includes the 5LC (5-Layer Compound) and Silica Rich EX. The 3LC and 5LC tech improves cornering grip by offering a softer edge without sacrificing the tyres overall durability, enabling faster corner speeds and better acceleration when exiting the corner. Silica Rich and Silica Rich EX provide increased amounts of silica in the compound of the tyre improving the tyres performance in wet conditions.
In addition to the above, the S22 front and rear also utilise Bridgestone’s MS Belt, HTSPC, RC Polymer and Nano Pro-Tech technologies. MS Belt consists of lightweight and durable cords wrapped around the circumference of the tyre to provide a smooth grip feeling, HTSPC is the material of the MS Belt cords and is comprised of individual rubber insulated inner filaments with high thermal conductivity to enhance heat transfer and reduce the risk of a blowout. RC Polymer is developed using Bridgestone’s key technology Nano Pro-Tech, which contributes to the improvement of wet performance and a longer wear life. While also using Bridgestone’s UltimatEYE which enables Bridgestone to run real-life scenarios up to speeds of 400km/h and lean angles up to 60 degrees providing them with the best feedback when testing the tyre.
