ADV Gravel Riders - What Tires?

[kubotamiketx]

I just got back from some killer rides in Utah with my twin, I did about 80% street, 20% dirt (not as much dirt as I expected, but the street stuff was way too much fun)

This was on a brand new set of Mitas E07 Dakar's front and rear. Must admit they did very well on both the street and the dirt completing about 800 miles without any major wear. The rear was abused with all the large elevation gains yet held up well with about 15% wear. Will try to post some pics a bit later. Front still has the fuzzy nubs on it.

One thing that I have never experienced before is when I stopped after a hard long uphill section on the street I could smell the hot rubber from the rear. It was so hot you couldn't touch it, but that was screaming 60 to 80 MPH up hill for 10 to 15 miles at a time. With the reduced power at high altitude and speeds the twin spent a lot of time at 70% throttle and the rear did great.

Off road was very nice, predictable. Soft sand is always hard with 500 lbs of bike.

Oh yea, what is with Utah and the black snake rode repairs. The fresh ones scared the heck out of me in the turns. First time I took corners at the posted speed limit and was still scared, not to mention what the heck is up with fish tailing up hill on straight roads under power. That was insane, but only about 5% of the roads were like that.

 

[Jarrett]

Why not a shinko 805 on the rear.

I guess I probably should give it a try. I hear almost nothing but good about them. The 705 slippage reports make me a little nervous about them. If it rides like the TKC80 but lasts longer, then I suspect it will be a good buy.

 

[StromXTc]

I guess I probably should give it a try. I hear almost nothing but good about them. The 705 slippage reports make me a little nervous about them. If it rides like the TKC80 but lasts longer, then I suspect it will be a good buy.

I think tire selection is a little slippery like oil threads (see what i just did there ) Lots of user personal preference involved. And preconceived notions of how it should handle are almost never true.

I have really enjoyed my e07 but have realized the trade off when dealing wth dual sport tires.

I have made a couple picture updates of mine here with about 4200 miles.

http://www.twtex.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1561347&postcount=54

 

[SilverBullet]

...
One thing that I have never experienced before is when I stopped after a hard long uphill section on the street I could smell the hot rubber from the rear. It was so hot you couldn't touch it, but that was screaming 60 to 80 MPH up hill for 10 to 15 miles at a time. With the reduced power at high altitude and speeds the twin spent a lot of time at 70% throttle and the rear did great.

Off road was very nice, predictable. Soft sand is always hard with 500 lbs of bike.

Sounds like low air pressure. What psi ?

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[kubotamiketx]

Maybe just a big butt!

32 front 34 rear

They are more of a 50/ 50 tire I pushed hard on pavement

Must say they stuck great in the corners



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[bwdmax]

For me the Mitas E07 Dakar is a great tire when you consider off-road, on-road traction and wear.

 

[SilverBullet]

Maybe just a big butt!

32 front 34 rear

They are more of a 50/ 50 tire I pushed hard on pavement

Must say they stuck great in the corners



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That's ballpark, but a tad low and probably causing slight extra heat . On the heavier Tenere I run 38/40. Rear tire is rated 42 psi cold. This tire is so stiff that you really don't gain much off-road traction with a slight decrease in PSI

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[JQ1.0]

I like the Shinko 705 front and rear. Just pulled a set off that had 12,000 miles on them. The rear was down to the wear indicators and ready to be replaced. The front probably has another 4 - 6 k of life left. I mounted PR4's front and rear for a trip and they will be coming off, though I liked them a lot for that ride. The front 705 will be going back on to finish it up. I'm going to match it with a new 805 rear that I was given (thanks Kevin), otherwise i would go back with a new 705. These are 17's front and rear on NC700x so no experience with your tire sizes. Caveat: I don't ride a "lot" of gravel on this bike but do some. I think they handle sand pretty well also. I think they would not do very well in the mud.

 

[Jarrett]

How big of a difference is there between a TKC70 and a TKC80 front tire, on road and off road?

Just looking at pricing, it seems like a TKC in the front and a Shinko 805 in the back is fairly decent way to go.
(I think that's exactly what Tourmeister said already )

 

[Jeff S]

Pretty big difference on both. TKC70's are more pavement oriented, and thus I prefer them to the 80's for dual sport kinda use (80 / 20 pavement / dirt). Perhaps try a 70 rear?

 

[Tourmeister]

I think the difference between the street oriented "big block" tires and the full knobby tires are more readily apparent on the front tire when riding unpaved surfaces. The bike just handles MUCH better when the front end is planted. A rear slide is not that big of a deal in most cases. A front slide can quickly end in the bike being on the ground, especially if you don't have the grip at the rear to recover it. The big bikes put a LOT of demand on that front tire in loose conditions. This is why I have defaulted to pretty much the TKC 80 front all the time now. If I were going off on some long road trip on the GS, I would not use it, but I never get to do that. The bulk of my riding is county/forest roads here in East Texas with the occasional Pie Run, and even then I usually do as much dirt there and back as I can.

Where you will REALLY notice a performance difference with the rear tire is in deep loose stuff like pea gravel and sand. The rear will have a tendency to spin a LOT, which makes it hard to keep the heavier bikes up on the top of the sand/gravel to keep your momentum going. We have a LOT of sand here in East Texas. I've used Anakees, Tourances, Avon something DS tires, K60's, and the Shinkos. None of the rears for those are decent in any serious sand. I did make it through some crazy sand in Utah with the K60s on my 1200 GS, but it took everything I had to keep the bike upright, including a LOT of sheer dumb luck!

On hard packed dirt/gravel, not deep or really loose, pretty much any tire will do, even the tires heavily biased toward pavement.

 

[Jarrett]

Thanks, sounds more and more like TKC80 Front and 804 rear is the bee's knees.

Next question, who has the best prices on them?

 

[Tourmeister]

Thanks, sounds more and more like TKC80 Front and 804 rear is the bee's knees.

Next question, who has the best prices on them?

When comparing prices, be sure to include shipping. Some folks will have low prices but charge for shipping, while others will have higher prices but free shipping.

I have had good luck with RevZilla in terms of total cost and speed of shipping. I have also used RockyMountainATV. SWMotoTires often has good deals as well.

 

[Jarrett]

Gracias!

 

[rpcraft]

For gravel I would avoid the Shinko 705's and just look for a sand tire. The 705's are an OK tire but I find them lacking grip when it comes to anything other than paved asphalt without having to air down way too much. I put some on my DR650 and regretted it 1000 % when I went off the tarmacin places, some mud, and loose dirt. If I had to do it all over again for that kind of riding I'd probably go with a good set of straight up big block knobby tires, like maybe the Shinko 805/804, or maybe even the more aggressive offroad knobbies, especially on the rear for trail breaking and hook up when accelerating. I could have drug the rear brake forever with the shinko 705 and that made it a real danger for braking because I was having to use my front brake way too much for the conditions we were riding on.

 

[oldmxer]

So I decided to try an E07 rear from reading this. But at what point do you replace a TKC80? On a dirt bike it NEVER would have been on this long. It is at 3/32. But is that OK on a beast? Or is the answer "what ever you are comfortable with"
New to the 1000 cc world.
Thanks in advance
Jim

 

[Jarrett]

For gravel I would avoid the Shinko 705's and just look for a sand tire. The 705's are an OK tire but I find them lacking grip when it comes to anything other than paved asphalt without having to air down way too much. I put some on my DR650 and regretted it 1000 % when I went off the tarmacin places, some mud, and loose dirt. If I had to do it all over again for that kind of riding I'd probably go with a good set of straight up big block knobby tires, like maybe the Shinko 805/804, or maybe even the more aggressive offroad knobbies, especially on the rear for trail breaking and hook up when accelerating. I could have drug the rear brake forever with the shinko 705 and that made it a real danger for braking because I was having to use my front brake way too much for the conditions we were riding on.

The 705's look great on paper. And I read reports of people liking them, but I also read reports of people really not liking them and it seems those are the people that take them off pavement, which is what I like to do.

At this point, I'm still deciding if my goto is going to be Shinko 804/805 or TKC80 front/Shinko 805 rear. Leaning towards the latter right now.

at what point do you replace a TKC80? On a dirt bike it NEVER would have been on this long. It is at 3/32. But is that OK on a beast? Or is the answer "what ever you are comfortable with" New to the 1000 cc world.

I have that exact same question. I have 1300 miles on my rear TKC80 and its going down fast. Just wondering when to pull the plug on it. It looks ok to me right now, but wondering where the cut off point is.

 

[JQ1.0]

The 705's look great on paper. And I read reports of people liking them, but I also read reports of people really not liking them and it seems those are the people that take them off pavement, which is what I like to do.

This guy is on a Versys 650 with 705's front and back. Crooked Creek when it was open, not a real difficult track, but still. Again not your tire sizes. Just depends on how dirty you want to get. The 804/805 are much more aggressive and should handle more technical stuff.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAyVDb0-mMk&t=5s"]Versys off road - dirt bike trails - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Tourmeister]

When to replace is more of a feel thing for me, and also whether or not I am about to head out for a long trip.

If I am doing a big trip somewhere like Colorado, Arkansas, North Carolina, etc,... where I will be doing about 6-7 days of riding, I will almost ALWAYS mount new front/back tires unless they were just mounted right before a trip. I'd rather pay the extra and know I have good tires for the trip than have a trip ruined because the tires wore out midway through the trip. I have seen this happen to other riders WAY too many times! I used to lead tours and would tell people to make sure they had good tires and it never seemed to fail that someone would have a tire start showing chords half way through the trip! Then it was a major hassle trying to salvage their trip for them because they could not be bothered to mount fresh tires beforehand.

The problem I have now is that the majority of my riding tends to be a few big trips per year. So when I go to get ready for a trip, I have half used tires on the bike that I replace before the trip. I am getting a good pile of half used tires because I never get to ride between trips to use run them down the rest of the way.

On the rare occasion that I wear out the tires between trips, it really does boil down to how the bike feels while I am out riding the dirt, sand, and gravel roads in our area. It really depends on the surface material. A worn down knob might do fine on a hard packed road with small rocks/gravel. However, if the rocks/gravel start getting much bigger than 1/8" diameter, you can really feel the front end sliding around a lot more. The taller knobs do a better job of letting bigger stuff go between the knobs and keeping the front planted better. So when I start noticing the front end trying to wash more than usual, I change the tire regardless of the apparent wear.

I might run the rear down a bit further, but where I feel that is when the bike leans over. On a new tire, the bike leans over smoothly from vertical to leaned. When the tire is worn and "squared", the bike resists leaning and then kind of snaps over as it rides up onto the edge of the squared off treads. At that point, there is less grip as well because the tire is riding on that edge instead of a normal contact patch. Again, this is a feel thing more than a treat depth measurement thing.

On my 1200 GS, I am happy if I get 2500-3000 miles from a rear TKC 80 and around 4500-5000 miles from the front. They type of riding makes a HUGE difference though. If I hop on the highway and run a few hundred miles at 70-80mph, that eats the tires. So the more time I spend OFF the pavement, the longer the tires last.

 

[Jarrett]

What do you get out of a Shinko 805 rear?

 

[JMZ]

What do you get out of a Shinko 805 rear?

Great traction off road and good on road handling. With low life .

 

[bwdmax]

If you can’t see thread there must be tread!

 

[Tourmeister]

What do you get out of a Shinko 805 rear?

Maybe 3000 or so. Not really much better than the TKC, but cheaper. It also tends to slide easier in corners. In a straight line, they behave the same.

 

[Jarrett]

I thought you said earlier that the Shinko 805's didn't slide like the 705's?

That's a bummer on the mileage. Maybe I'll just stick with the TKC's.

 

[Jarrett]

If you can’t see thread there must be tread!

I like that