Independent tread wear testing carried out by safety and quality specialist DEKRA has delivered a positive result for Dunlop’s new SportSmart motorcycle tyre. The Dunlop tyre was testing against Michelin’s Power Pure tyres, Pirelli’s Diablo Rosso and Bridgestone’s BT016 at DEKRA’s Narbonne Test Centre in France during January and February. During the testing staff from the centre rode 2009 model Suzuki GSX-R1000 bikes over a 4480 kilometre selection of open roads in southwest France – 15 per cent motorway and 85 per cent open and city roads, of which 45 per cent were twisting mountain roads – in order to compress the effects of many weeks of hard European sports riding into a considerably shorter time span.