<Disclaimer - opinion incoming :) >

Honestly the bridgestones are, and always have been, excellent for the road. The BT-090 is sticky enough for anything you're likely to through at it on the road and the BT-92 has always been an excellent dual compound sports touring tyre.

The only reason i went to a 17" rear was when i started club racing back in 2000. After the 3rd time the rear BT-96 (as they were at the time) let go on me going through clark curve, i got an RVF rear wheel and moved to D207GP's and never looked back for the track. When i went back to a road NC30 again 8/9 years ago i didn't even have to think about it, a new set of 090's wen't straight on.

Very few bikes these days run 4.5" x 18" rear wheels and the tyre manufacturers aren't going to wasn't time and money devloping them for 20 year old bikes.

Bridgestone are one of the few who do continue to offer tyres for 'odd' sized wheels like the NC30 and earlier fireblades.

The more reasonably size of the RVF wheels helps me if I need a new tyre quickly, next years long rides will be TT and south of france, I enjoy sticky tyres inbetween stints on tourer tyres when i'm at university I don't do that many miles about 90 miles a week but when i'm not studying I do allot of long distances going home and back so having a wide choice is nice and to try what I think suits my riding style most.

I do enjoy the BT-92 its been good to me so far but i'll try something new when I change the wheels over the biggest reason I bought RVF wheels was the fact my front wheel is a CBR600F 3 spoke so it doesn't match the rear 18'', once the 92's are shot i'll sell the front, source a VFR front in black and repowder coat the rear to sleep in my garage.