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Street riding wear & tear

Joined
Dec 25, 2007
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Clear Lake
Hi. I'm deciding whether I should keep just one bike for both trail and street or just have two bikes. If I just keep one, KDX for example, will I be able to find a decent tire that will work on both street and trail? I ride 15 miles per day on my commute. So that's approximately 300 miles of street riding per month or 3600 miles per year. That's all traffic light, stop-n-go, style riding. Is that going to wear out the KDX too fast? I just hate having to maintain two bikes, keeping track of them both. Having just one bike makes life a whole easier. But at the same time, I don't want to have to replace a bike too often because street riding tears it up.
 
That won't wear out the KDX. Street riding is easier on the bike than trail stuff is. Tire selection to span both pavement and trail duty is always a compromise. What works well on one works less well on the other. It still works, just gives away some performance capability. Everyone has their favorite tire choice and for every good choice someone else has a horror story.

I have two tires in mind, but you have to choose which direction (street or dirt) you want to optimize.

If street then the Shinko 705 is a good choice. Quiet and smooth, decent in the rain if you get caught out. Bike will rail curves with these tires. I run these on the KLR.

If dirt then Kenda 760 Trak-Master is my choice. Aggressive knobby that is DOT legal. No tire worries at all off road. On my Yamaha the rear has around 4,000 miles and could stand to be replaced. Front will last two or three rear tires duty cycles. Even as a knobby it sticks on dry pavement pretty good and when it does break loose it does so in a controlled manner. (Ask Desert Skies about our New Years day run on the paved River Road)

There are spendier tires than these to choose from such as the venerable Dunlop 606 and Pirrelli MT-21. Both of those are as good or better than the Kenda. For me price point was farther apart than performance capacity.

Lots of choices, nearly all very good too.

p.s.... watch you gas level on commute days, pre-mix is hard to find out there on the roads!
 
What about the idea that the lack of "cush drive" on pavement cause extra wear and tear on the transmission? I guess that that means on the trail the rear wheel would just spin and there's not much stress on the transmission, but on the street the grip is so good there's no wheel spin and the transmission has to absorb all that energy.
 
What about the idea that the lack of "cush drive" on pavement cause extra wear and tear on the transmission? I guess that that means on the trail the rear wheel would just spin and there's not much stress on the transmission, but on the street the grip is so good there's no wheel spin and the transmission has to absorb all that energy.

Plenty of street bikes out there that don't have cush drives. Sure, you may shorten teh chain life a tiny bit and may put a little more stress on the tranny, but it's doubtful that it will amount to any significant amount.
 
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