Tires?! Ughh it's time.

[Rot Box]

Right now I have some Henco en China street tires on and they are down right scary even on a dirt road. Being that this is my first dual sport bike I'm wondering what are you guy's running for dual sport tires? Do you like what you have? What are you considering for your next purchase? I'm loving the new Geomax MX51's from Dunlop on my CR, but obviously they are going to shred to pieces on the road :-\

These will be for my WR426F that I ride to work at least 3 days a week @ 40miles round trip. I would really like to be able to ride somewhat comfortably on all the rocky single track around here but still get some road life--is that close to possible or should I be considering a spare set of wheels? More than happy to pay extra for a high quality tire. LOL thanks for any help,

Andrew

 

[Caleb]

I'm surprised you like the MX51s, my buddy had them on his WR450 and after only 6ish rides, they were toast. (little to no street miles in those rides). I'm currently using MX71s. Initially they seemed too hard, but after a couple rides, I broke them in and I really like them now. I put them on towards the end of last season, and I bet if I wanted them to, they would last all this season too. I did a decent little run up around your neck of the woods over Memorial (left from Plymouth heading east over to Clarkston, then turned north, rode a good combination of street and farmer roads up in to Idaho, up in to Back Canyon till I hit some private property, turned around and looped back around through Weston, Cornish, and back to Clarkston up over the mountain and back to Plymouth). My MX71s are still happy.

The MX71 is a desert tire, so it's a tough carcass, but I;ve heard the D606 is really the tire you want if if you'll be streeting it. It's a good compromise tire. I think it was Greg that told me, it's not great at any one thing (offroad, onroad, etc) but does a good job overall. I think Russ is currently running the D606, maybe he can comment on how he likes it.

 

[Rot Box]

Geez Caleb you were playing in my back yard and didn't even say hi?! LOL Where you made the (what we call) the Clarkston loop you can stay in the hills and go farther North to hit some really fun and somewhat technical trails. These can lead you to Malad, Portage or over the highway to the Weston Mountains that could take you as far North as Downey You also rode near "Dirty Head" outside of Clarkston which is a nasty hill full of chutes and hillclimbs. My friend owns the land there and he hillclimbs all over the West so it was made as a practice hill of sorts. Either way that hill can make a grown man cry depending on the day!


The 51's do wear pretty quick but with this rainfall/snowpack most of our trails hear lately are like rivers--rivers on trails with lots of slick limestone rock and these have really impressed me with their hookup and predictability, but they can get expensive over time.

Thanks for the heads up on the 71's. I'm going to look into them for sure