Sport-touring in Croatia with the new Bridgestone Battlax T33

Somewhere you might not've thought of, though, would be Croatia, with its vast white stone valleys and towering grey massifs. Lunar it most certainly is, and if you've flicked through a motorcycle brochure, watched a motoring advert, or glanced at a billboard, you've probably seen imagery taken in this very part of the world without knowing it.

Croatia hugs a sizeable share of the Adriatic coastline about 100 miles over the sea east of Italy, and you'll arguably find some of Europe's best riding here. And despite there being so much history and so many reasons to visit, it's not often found on riders' radars. It's not just lunar, though; newly constructed highways help keep twisty, scenic roads freer of tourist traffic, leaving you to enjoy views of azure lakes, myriad stunning islands and coastlines. Plus, there's a rich culture, with great food and wine when you stop.

And, if you do come this way, plan to go further afield, too. Head up towards Bosnia for changing faces, unapologetic evidence of various recent conflicts, and traffic is all but vanquished. Head further south and you'll find the vistas and vineyards of Montenegro, and then Albania's mountainous terrain. Push even further onwards and your reward will be Greece. What's not to like?

It's just over half a decade since I last rode in Croatia so it's great to be back, and despite having been here before I'm still taken aback by all the virtues I just extolled. It comes as no surprise that Bridgestone would choose to launch its latest T33 sport-touring tire here. I already know this, but the mix of road surfaces and variety of corners provide a near perfect proving ground for a tire presentation. The only thing missing from the menu — almost amusingly given this sport-touring tire — is a chance of rain, which can only mean I'd made sure to pack my waterproofs (and I had). I'm complaining but I'm not complaining at all.

A London tire tester in Croatia

Heading north out of Trogir, two things are spinning on my mind. First, I hope it isn't highway all the way, and second, will I even have an opinion on a tire? Round, black, err… I'm not sure I'm qualified, and there's that imposter syndrome again in all its glory. After all, I only seem to ride two types of tires: hypersports and rain (hey, I live in London, England… you know — fish 'n' chips, cup o' tea, bad food*, worse weather, Mary f'in Poppins — London!), so will a tire that sits firmly between what I'd usually ride be completely lost on me? I was excited to find out. (*Just kidding. London's food scene is actually fantastic. We moved on from jellied eels two years ago.)

We've turned off the highway after a brief stint and the bike I've jumped on, BMW's F 900 XR, is both impressing me and annoying me in equal measures. The engine's ticking all my boxes; I was expecting a lumpy, lethargic affair but instead it's energetic and willing me to do things the law might take a dim view on. This thing is fun and sounds great, too, as any 270-degree parallel twin should. The windscreen on the other hand? Dreadful. I can only think of one other bike I've ridden that had airflow as turbulent as this one and, as I recall, I gave up on that one after 10 miles before returning it fearing frontal lobe trauma if I let my brain bounce around any further.

I digress. I'd also had a bit of time to think about the T33's press release as we eased into the day's route. The headline being that compared to its predecessor, the T32, it's a case of evolution over revolution. The focus was on more longevity — 47% more miles is the important claim — while also not sacrificing performance in any other area, all the way from wet performance to yaw response, wet-condition steering input effort (!) and beyond. That seems like a tall order to me, but Bridgestone says it had a solid base to work from. For this iteration, Bridgestone developed a new rear center compound made of a new and longer polymer chain (which is where the extra longevity is found). It's also designed a new tread pattern with improved stiffness, and opted for a new construction which tweaks the mono-spiral belt on the rear and cross-belt on the front.

Importantly, says Bridgestone, the shape and profile of the T33 remains unchanged and is identical to the T32. The GT version (aimed at heavier bikes) has been discontinued as Bridgestone wanted to bring one spec, front and rear, for all applications. Looking at the graphs of the land/sea ratio across the tire as it leans, it’s apparent that the T33 is very, very close to the T32 GT, with a lower groove ratio across all but the very middle and very edges, which remain the same. In other words, it puts more rubber on the road overall than the T32 did, and marginally more than the T32-GT. The T33 is available in plenty of sizes already (four front and six rear), with more coming in 2026, and it's worth noting in the United States the T32 will disappear from stocks, if it hasn't already (but other markets will keep the T32 in stock for longer). I note that a 200-section rear is not planned, which tells you where Bridgestone think the limits of this tire lie.

Sounds good. And so far, it had been, in the 124 miles we'd ridden northwest to Petrčane, but the only takeaway I'd gathered so far was that it felt like a comfy tire compared to what I'm used to, and that I wasn't thinking at all about the tire itself, just the riding.

The bikes for this test were as varied as they were obvious for sport-touring applications. On offer were light steeds such as Ducati's Monster 939 and Kawasaki's Z900 SE, through to more traditional sport-tourers like Kawasaki’s Versys 1100, Honda’s NT1100, and Suzuki's GSX-GRSXTR1000-SXGTRSRRGT (apologies, I think I missed an X somewhere). Towards the heavier end of the spectrum were machines like BMW's R 1250 RT and R 1300 GS Adventure, which would've been candidates for the previous T32-GT. I make that about a 250-pound spread in weight from lightest to heaviest, indicating Bridgestone really does expect one spec will work across a wide variety of motorcycles.

After BMW's '900, I resolved I'd ride plenty more bikes on day two's journey, which would take in the corner-infested coastal road through Starigrad to the stunning Island of Pag. I woke up pondering that perhaps my perception of comfort could be down to the suspension setup on the 900, and that riding more bikes would help me form a better idea.

And unsurprisingly, it did. I started on Kawasaki's buzzy Z900 SE and after 50 miles or so jumped to Kawasaki's 1100SX, and then onwards to BMW's R 1300 GS Adventure. I ditched that contraption swiftly for a quick jaunt on Kawasaki's Versys 1100, and then hopped again to Suzuki's GSX-S…whatever. The tarmac was twisty, to the point where I think the Croats had temporarily forgotten what straight even was, and confidence was allowed to run quite high. As a group, we'd begun pushing a little, but at the same time, relaxed in the places where the views commanded our attention.

I’d begun to experiment with trailing brakes into corners more than I needed to, and gassing out earlier than I usually would, and even just accelerating all the way through corners if I had the visibility to do so, just to play around. Ducati's Monster was particularly enlightening, with its combination of punchiness and a front end that, when pushed, likes to go flighty and run wide. The T33 was working hard here, but it wasn't flinching one bit. The heavier Beemers and even the Z1100SX (which weighs in, somehow, at 515 pounds) revealed a steady-footed, gradual, arc-like tip-in, and a really solid feeling once planted into a corner.

We didn’t ever get to the point where the T33 was going to start hinting that it was towards the end of its comfort zone, but we were also hardly hanging around, either. No matter the bike, and no matter how much I tried to provoke it, I always had a feeling of comfort and stability, and the sense that the T33 had far more in it than I was ever going to ask. I'll admit, one particular righthander after a series of predictable radiuses tightened up unexpectedly and I found myself on the front brake, leaned over, running somewhat wide, wondering whether it was going to cash the check I'd just asked it to… and it shrugged it off without a hint of ABS or otherwise.

I think, on balance, that compared to a hypersport tire the T33 gives less feedback about what's going on with the road surface itself, leaving you to do more of that calculus yourself, but that's sort of the point — and the comfort is what you get from that trade-off.

After the dodgy corner, I decided to turn off the traction control on the Z1100SX and take some liberties. The asphalt was hot and grippy, so why not? Even with fairly pacy riding, I still didn't have any issues grabbing as much throttle as I felt like; I just got on with it, as if I had all the safety aids cranked right up. I did successfully and intentionally provoke it once: a tiny amount of movement exiting a corner, leaned over whilst applying far too much gas in second gear, and also upright over a road covered in construction dust. Both events seemed entirely justified to me.

Coming away from day two and another 140 miles, I'd cemented a couple of things in my mind. First, I could form an opinion on a tire after all, and also provoke it into telling me something it wouldn't have otherwise. Phew. Second, this T33 is plenty enough for 99% of anyone's riding on the road. It's got plenty of ability, at least in the warm and dry. Third, the feeling of comfort I garnered from the very first bike I rode it on was consistent across all the bikes I jumped aboard, be it a 375-pound roadster or a 550-pound bruiser. Cracks, ripples, and tar snakes were all handled really nicely; imperfections I'd usually either wince before hitting, or even go out of my way to ride around, the T33 just seemed to deal with and take in its stride, with less vibration and movement transferred up to me through the bike than I'm used to. A three-mile stretch of bumpy road had me intentionally aiming for every crease, bump, and undulation possible, just for the sake of it. And when would you ever do that unless you happen to like trips to the dentist?

The part where my inner nerd comes out

Later in the evening I managed to spend an hour going through the press presentation with Bridgestone's U.S. product strategy manager. It was an hour well spent, and I could've picked his brains for far longer, but I'll distill the important things I learnt. Most eye-opening to me was that a tire in this segment doesn't "warm up quickly." Rather, it has a much wider window of temperatures in which it works. So when the tire is still cold, having only ridden a few miles at 20 to 30 mph, it's in fact already in its zone.

Next, two tire compounds can have the same softness yet have completely different wear characteristics. In other words, a tire can be just as grippy and still be as soft, or softer, or harder than another. I had no idea; I assumed the soft/hardness and wear rates were intrinsically linked. Not so, because you're dealing with completely different chemical compositions. It's always worth a chat with the experts.

Third, the "Ultimate Eye" machine Bridgestone built to analyze tires for MotoGP and Formula 1 sounds like an incredible piece of kit. It's essentially a giant drum with thousands of load sensors over its surface, and Bridgestone uses it to spin a tire up to 180+ mph and articulate it through 120 degrees to measure, among other things, slippage as load is applied. That, in turn, enables block pattern movement and stiffness analysis to help Bridgestone to fine-tune tread wear characteristics. And that is exactly where the longevity improvements with this T33 come from. By analyzing and eliminating a certain area of wear under load, more rubber is left on the tire which, in the end, equals more miles from a set of tires. And "set" is the key word here, as the 47% increase claim is averaged over both tires when you take into consideration that only the rear's center compound has changed in the T33.

Let's piece this all back together and summarize. Wildly different bikes, twisty roads, highways, towns, villages, ferries, grippy surfaces, gravel, and some less grippy surfaces over approximately 370 miles… the overall impression of comfort and sure-footedness, with really decent performance, is what I take away from this ride. No matter what I was piloting, at no point did I feel like I was even close to asking too much of the T33's ability. I didn't get to test it in the wet, nor verify the longevity claims, but everything else Bridgestone claimed seemed to check out. Sure, there's a slight lack of road surface feeling compared to a hypersport tire, but you gain comfort for making that trade.

If you aren't taking your bike to a track day, maybe it's time to think about a sport-touring tire.