I'll throw in my .02 on the 890. I'm on my second one, the first was defective, out of round. The second is also out of round, but less so. I'll stick with it, sick of changing rear tires. Four different rear tires in less than 3k miles.
Cornering seems to do quite well, though not as confidence inspiring as the Avon Venom or Michelin Commander II.
This tire is rated for over 1000 lbs. I reduced the pressure from 40 to 35lbs. Ride is better and the twichiness is less pronounced. The bike is not nearly as stable when playing with freeway traffic. It also likes to follow the grooves in concrete. Could be traits of a radial tire, I dunno. I haven't played with it that hard in the rain yet, as it is still relatively new. I did play with the brake on a wet road, it seemed to take quite a bit of pedal pressure to get it to break loose.
This a tall tire. Doing 80 on the GPS showed 4600 rpm, stock size Venom and Commander II both showed 5000. Like SiSF said at breakfast yesterday, kind of like a 6 and 3/4 gear.
To sum it up, I don't think I'll buy another one. I really liked the Michelin Commander II for ride, handling, and they actually make a tire that is round. It's possible the Michelin I had was an aberration, but it slipped out very easy on a corner with light acceleration on a wet road. Dry road, it kicked butt. I dunno what's with the Shinko deal. I run Shinko 700 series street knobs on my KLR and absolutely love them. They do everything very well. I've had two out of round 890s in a row, the second, less so. Western Power Sports was superb to deal with on a replacement.
Note. If this bike didn't have 170k miles on it, I would hook up with a 17" rear and spoon on a Michelin PR3. The one I have on the front is one superb tire. Folks running them on the C-14s are liking them a bunch also.