Locking the front

Ok i know the weathers not great still in the UK and i'm not the smoothest of riders, but i seem to be locking the front with worrying regularity.

I don't like the 208rr's on the SDR but this is getting to such an issue that i'm losing some confidence

most of the front sliding is at lower speeds 40 ish mph, admitedly most is panic grab any tips or change i can do to get slightly less INITIAL bite ?

a few factors that could be coming into play:

road conditions: is your council gritting or worse, using that sugary crap on the roads at night? this stuff is really slippery!

your braking, do you grab it hard and fast? progressive braking is key.

weight distribution, where is your weight on the bike? Do you lean back when you brake? you need to get your weight over the front end gradually, let the front tyre bear the weight and compress slightly then apply more braking force.

Tyre pressure, what pressure are you running cold on the front? if it's too high or low you can experience poor handling/braking. I keep mine around 34-36psi and it's always good.

Sorry if any of that was obvious...but it sounds like you've got quite a problem there so just want to throw out all suggestions for you.

Finally, yeah, it could just be that those tyres dont like this cold and dont warm up enough to get the usual grip they are designed to give. I've never used them myself so cannot say what they should feel like.

Hope that helped, but I kinda expect it to all sound familiar.

Ah yes the 208rr thing again... I seem to be in the minority, but I've been running them this winter without any slides yet(touch wood). I run my front at 32psi which seems fine for handling and will make em warm up a bit quicker. Of course really grabby front brake action will make any tyre slide in crap conditions. My wife's been particularly good at panic braking and lost the front end several times

check tyre pressure, i had similar problem few years back - my dealer changed the front tyre, and than problems started... i thought it's crappy tyre at first, but when i checked pressure, it was ridicolously high, like 60-70 psi or something.... deadly!
other than that... see what STCMan said, it might be your technique, this bike has very strong brakes.

yeah, what smoky says is true but also check that the pressure gauge is accurate, i had a tyre fitted and inflated to presure by the garage...rode it..felt llike crap, we double checked it....inflated to 40 psi instead of 36 and it was better. I resigned it to being a shite tyre but when i used my own pressure gauge it was way low....i inflated to correct pressure and bang, it was perfect. Called the garage, told him his gauge was off and he said "yeah, we tested it next day and binned it, sorry".

Moral: have a trusted and tested gauge

hehe, big of you to admit it actually...

I be you're just grateful it's something that's simple, cheap n easy to fix rather than any other problem!

blimey, if the corsa III's are better in the cold and wet than the 208RR's then they must be rubbish! I found the Corsa's to be not great in the wet and cold...I'm on a Strada at the moment and it's much better in the wet.

Yep when these Dunslips have given the ghost, i will go back to PP 2ct's which deserve a medal for the abuse they took on my ZX10r