Advice on choosing bike setup for Morocco
 

Colleagues,
We plan rather short trip to Morocco end April.
About 7-10 days long. I never been there before, we taking bikes from Malaga to Tanger by ferry.

I have Suzuki DR800 that I use for my long trips. My bike heavily modified with top-notch suspension and have 2 sets of wheels - knobby tyres 21/17 set and spoked 17/17 set with wider tires.
Since most of our trip supposed to be on roads this time (may be next time offroad) I am stuck with choice.
On one hand I totally love idea of going through Atlas twisty roads on set of relatively sticky road or touring tires because with 17/17 wheels bike handles like dream.
On other hand my friends said - perhaps we go visit couple of places on our way using hard unpaved roads. I assume - stones, hard underlying surface.
My friend will be on 2 GS1200 and 1 Vstrom. They have no choices for wheels but will go with anakees 2 or something like.
I have flexibility. That sometimes s...s :)
What would you recommend on basis of your experience - putting on set of something like Mefo K73 on 17/17 wheels or just going for 21/17 wheels with Anakees? Purely in terms of having most pleasure on the ride.

Approximate route:

откуда: Танжер, Марокко; куда: Танжер, Марокко - Карты Google

An Anakee is a street tyre as far as I'm concerned and will give you no dirt advantage on a 21 apart from the diametre/slimness. If your going 21/17 fit TKCs or similar to have the edge.
I'd take the 17/17s - you wont be left behind by the bigger bikes on the dirt and will have a gas on the bitumen. Dont know Mefo K73.

Ch

thank you! That confirms my thoughts!

Ah, my bad - it is Heidenau K73, not Mefo (thou it is same factory)

Here it is

http://static1.tradoro.pl/755/heidenau-k73kpl.jpg

The tyres above would be OK in dry good conditions, but would clog up at the first sign of mud and wouldn't be much help in other problematic offroad situations.

I've ridden 200,000+ miles on TKC 80 tyres on five different bikes. TKCs aren't as good as full-on offroad knobblies but they are a great compromise for pretty good piste work and pretty good road handling as well.

Tim

I fully agree - even Mefo Explorer 99s got clogged in mud pretty fast...
But I kinda hope for no rain in Morocco...which rises following question (damn, that what I should have started with doh ): does it rain in morocco between April 28 and say May 14?
I know, this sounds stupid - but I have been on other side a lot (Cadiz, southern Spain) but never been on Africa side. And I always prefer info from people who was there...

Outside of July/August weather in Morocco is as highly unpredictable as elsewhere in the world.

It should be lovely and sunny and warm. However nobody was expecting a 3-metre high wave of water coming out of the sand dunes at Erg Chebbi when Riad Maria was destroyed in May 2006 (3 people killed).

Thank you.
Bearing in mind this and that my colleagues will ride on Anakee 2 I will go for Heidenau K73 front and will leave my road tire at the back alone - since it is rather new.