לכבוד הנשיא - PRESS RELEASE לZ6

r929 · ב-9 למרץ, 2004

שווה לנסות,

METZELER ROADTEC Z6: FROM GERMAN TECHNOLOGY

COMPLETE RELIABILITY FOR SPORT-TOURING BIKES

An innovative tyre for a segment growing in capacity and power. Road sense as a guiding light during development. From tread compound to structure and tread pattern, equilibrium between sports performance and reliability of use.

Isle of Man, United Kingdom, July 2003 Roadtec Z6 is the new line of Metzeler tyres destined to equip the latest generation of Sport-Touring motorcycles.

Available in all markets from October in a range of 10 sizes in 17 inch and 18 inch diameter, the Metzeler Roadtec Z6 is aimed at bikes with a strong personality and great versatility, like the BMW K1200 GT/RS and R1150 RS/RT, Ducati ST4S, Honda VFR 800 and ST 1300 Pan European and Yamaha FJR 1300.

The Sport-Touring segment has experienced a profound evolution from the performance perspective in recent years, with a general increase in capacity and power. This has ended up exalting the machines sports vocation. But it is the riding philosophy of the Sport-Touring motorcyclist that has remained unchanged, a person for whom performance must always respond to the basic prerequisites: safety, stability and mileage.

For a tyre manufacturer, who has to develop wider sections of his product to support the increase in performance, the real challenge is in knowing how to respect that riding philosophy, while maintaining an equilibrium between the Sporting spirit and the practicalities of Touring use: speed and grip in the dry, but also comfort and mileage, handling on tortuous road sections and safety in the wet. In other words, to create a single tyre as a common basis for different riding styles.

Born of the best German traditions, the Roadtec Z6 unites within itself the best of Metzelers expertise in the field of Sport-Touring radials, consigning to the marketplace a product of advanced technological content, which is reliable and safe. Positioning itself at the centre of the Metzeler range, between the Sportec M-1 sporting tyre and the ME880 tourer, the Roadtec Z6 underlines its ability to aim itself with accuracy at motorcyclists who love to unleash the sporting temperament of their bikes as much as they do their machines road compatibility. People who, more than anything else, want reliability and safety from their motorcycles.

The successor to the popular Metzeler ME Z4 series, the Roadtec Z6 has further improved levels of wet and dry grip: it demonstrates a specific and discernable riding confidence, especially in critical manoeuvres: solid contact with the road, great progressivity, stable trajectory. In particular, in order to enhance the riding feeling of the many different Sport-Touring bikes, two different carcass structures has been developed.

To create the Roadtec Z6, Metzeler technicians used the most advanced design and development systems in the tread compound, reinforcing materials, structural geometry and tread pattern areas.

The Roadtec Z6 tread compound, with its high silica content, was specifically developed with the basic needs of Sport-Touring motorcyclists as its objective: maximum grip in a range of highly variable temperatures, so as to arrive at speed and performance in complete safety and with an optimum mileage return.

The innovative extrusion process permits the use of raw materials of a high quality level, such as the latest generation polymers, carbon blacks and silica, for which the structure of the compound derived from them, called FCM or Fine Carbon Matrix, offers an ample and immediate adaptability to diverse climatic conditions.

The front tyre, in particular, demonstrates an ultra-high degree of handling capability in the wet: precise on insertion into a corner, progressive when leaning over in down hill bends. A mix of performance and safety, which is accentuated even more in the dry, on which the performance potential of the Roadtec Z6 supports the rider well, when he desires a more sporting use of his bike.

Through the tread pattern of the Roadtec Z6, there flows all the Metzeler experience in the technical field to guarantee safety and reliability under any kind of use. So the new radial has been born combining the drainage and mileage characteristics that made the ME Z4 so popular across the world, but with the basic concepts that sustain the sporting vocation of the Sportec M-1.It is an innovative and technically advanced design, which combines in the best possible way the different sea/land distribution along the section of the tyre between front and rear, to maximise drainage capability when riding in the wet. In the dry, the performance equilibrium that inspires the Roadtec Z6 in all its aspects is manifested in perfect combination between sports grip and mileage, within the logic of the use of a Sport-Touring bike.

The contour of the Metzeler Roadtec Z6 has a name: CMT or Contour Modelling Technology. It describes a technological solution that permits the development of the tyres profile, combining different designs, each one of which is optimised for an individual leaning angle. In that way, the best possible compromise is obtained for all riding conditions, always guaranteeing neutral and progressive handling. Solidity and stability are the riding concepts that guided the development of the Roadtec Z6s structure, designed to always ensure absolute control of dynamic deformation in the contact patch.

The immediately perceptible result for the motorcyclist is neutral and smooth handling in all manoeuvres: in agile and fast changes of trajectory, the motorcycle always remains predictable, with never anything other than total reliability in the motorcycle-system and its interaction with the roads surface.

It is the actual concept of facilitating riding that, its riders will find, has been revolutionised: in fact, the Roadtec Z6 adapts itself to different riding styles, pushing that much further forward those limits of safety that remain among the prime values of Sport-Touring motorcyclists.

The innovative developments contained within the Metzeler Roadtec Z6 are installed in a patented technological platform, which has been behind the success of the German radials for years: the construction with its 0° steel belt for both the front and rear tyres. In the specific field of Sport-Touring use, the 0° metal belt translates into immediately appreciable riding ease, even to those who do not ride bikes professionally. The tyre is more stable and handles in a uniform manner, even in high speed riding conditions, yet when fully loaded it is more balanced in a corner, more stable under braking.

On top of that, there is the comfort aspect, which the Sport-Touring motorcyclist has always known how to appreciate: the Roadtec Z6s comfort comes from a marked self-damping characteristic, so that riding the tyre is always a pleasure, whether on long motorway journeys or fast and demanding rides over twisting roads.