Tire choice , want advice
 

I will be in Mexico, Central, South America Nov-June. I want to navigate around most large cities preferring rural to urban routes. Yet I want to be safe on wet tarmac at speed. My question is whether to go with a 50/50 dualsport or 80/20, and I will be on a 08' KLR 685

If you are planning any type of desert crossing, then maybe a more aggressive type of tread, if you are sytaying with paved roads, then maybe a 60-40 or 70-30 would last a lot longer.

Regardless of road, you will be travelling along dirt on some sections, no other way, so whatever feels comfortable for you and your pocket.

I used TKC80's, the tyre of choice on the front, then whatever I could get on the rear, Tourance, Anakee II

Cheers
TS

If you want longevity, go for European-made Tourances. With the right tyre pressure they go forever (can't remember exactly but my first rear lasted for about 30000km). Brazilian-made Tourances run down A LOT quicker.

If money isn't an issue: you'll find quality tyres in most countries, so you might as well go knobbly.

On the past 70,000 km, I've never been in a situation where I really NEEDED a knobbly/dual sport. (Though I DID use them – just in case it got muddy, for example on the Pamir Highway).

For long sandy stretches, you'd probably want something more than the TKC80 anyway.
My travel buddy in Paraguay had a Michelin Desert on the rear (on wet tarmac, 300km). When it started to rain, he 'tested' grip for a few minutes to then reduce speed accordingly. We arrived safely that day.

I'm 205lbs, and with 75lbs of gear rode a KLR with TKC 80's from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and north to San Salvador (18,000km) before the rear was done. The front went another 6000kms.

The TKC's were brilliant in dirt, mud and loose gravel. passable in sand and OK on pavement below 110kmh.

The rear was switched to a Michelin Anakee in San Salvador. The Anakee was great on the pavement, but paled in comparison to the balding TKC's on softer terrain.

TKC80's all the way
 

throughout our 7 years on the road we have always used TKC80's. front and back. they have got us through every type of terrain you can think of.
unless you have a truck following you and loads of $$$ for continually changing your tyres in my opinion these are the best tyres to use.

we are not sponsored by continental (although we would dearly love to be!) and we still say they are the best 50/50.

we also think they last too. initially the seem to wear down fast - however they then 'level-out' and harden and we usually get 12000 miles out of them.
but if you are the type of rider who accelerates hard all of the time of course this is not going to be true!

Wow, 12,000 miles on a set of TKC80... :eek3:. Of course hard acceleration and stopping will "eat" tires. I found that tarmac and speed kills TKCs too.

Question @ Lisa:
1. What average speeds were y'all doing on wide open tarmac?
2. Anything special about tire pressure that would permit this kind of high mileage?
3. How far down have y'all taken the tire tread when you've reached 12,000 miles?
4. Did you also get 12k miles on the 1100GS with "teeks"?

That's a lot of miles on a TKC rear. I get up to around 7000 miles/11,000 km on the rears--sometimes less--and I'm easy on tires and riding a lighter bike. If I'm hoping for longer life on similar (50-50) terrain I use Kenda 270's instead, but the handling is definitely inferior on pavement. There are lots of other possibilities for the KLR, including the Shinko I've currently got on my rear, but I'm a creature of habit.

In all other respects I agree with Lisa's description. TKC's are the best compromise tires I've found for my purposes. On the other hand, what I usually do is grab whatever fits wherever I am when I need tires. Then I just do my best to make it work....and it generally does. You can get quite crazy trying to find just the right tires for conditions in, say, Belem (where I settled for 80/20 tires right before riding the worst mud and nastiest roads of my recent trip).

Hope that helps.

Mark

These look interesting for the future-
I am still using Mitas E07 on the Dakar and Heidenau K60's on 1200GS for best compromise.

The Heidenau K60 is the latest "holy grail" in terms of performance on/off road and tire wear. Are you getting the 150 size (rear) for the 1200GS readily in the UK, or is everybody putting the 140 size on?

In the US we are still waiting for the 150 size. I had direct communication with Heidenau in Germany and they are not making any commitment as to when the US will see the 150 size. The email communication indicated that they had discovered issues with this particular sizes and the new K60-Scout will take care of whatever issues those were.

fitted the correct size.
personally, I never take chances with steering, brakes and tyres!
Can you post up email re concern? not aware of any but many people ride on those so would be a good heads-up
info on K60 Scout here

Just a quick note on the Heidenaus, if you are using the 140x80 on the rear. This is only useful for those with Vstroms. The tread depth is quite a few mm higher and along with a lowered bike, I have found many times in the tyres early life, that it rubs the underside of the mudguard and have noticed that it has actually rubbed through into the under seat tray itself.

But the tyres do last, apparently a lot better than the 150x70 anyway

Cheers
TS

Yes, I am with you on correct/approved size of tires, brakes etc.

Here is the Email correspondence I had with Heidenau regarding the US, where DOT is the regulating body regarding tires (Different to UK and Germany):

From: Scheffel
To: Thomas (T.REX63)
Sent: Thu Oct 07 02:08:15 2010
Subject: Re: Motorradreifen Heidenau K60 fuer USA

Hallo Herr Thomas
vielen Dank fuer Ihre Anfrage.

Im Zuge gesetzlicher Neuerungen mussten wir den K60 berarbeiten.
Mit der neuen Version des 150-iger Scout Reifens wurde im Haus mit dem Termin Juni gerechnet.
Bei der praktischen Erprobung des Hinterrades hat sich jedoch herausgestellt, dass der Reifen unseren Anforderungen noch nicht genuegt und wir ihn so nicht auf den Markt bringen koennen.

Momentan sind wir unter Hochdruck dabei die aufgetretenen Maengel abzustellen um den Reifen schnellstmoeglich auf den Markt bringen zu koennen.
Einen neuen Liefertermin moechten wir vorerst nicht herausgeben.

Wenn Sie es wuenschen kann ich Ihre E-mail Adresse aufnehmen und Ihnen sobald der Reifen wieder verfuegbar ist eine Information zukommen lassen.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen

Marco Scheffel
Vertrieb

Telefon +49 (03529) 552 802
Fax +49 (03529) 512 438
EMail scheffel@reifenwerk-heidenau.de
Internet Reifenwerk Heidenau

Reifenwerk Heidenau GmbH & Co. Produktions KG
Hauptstr. 44
D-01809 Heidenau, HRA 1858

Persnlich haftende Gesellschafterin: Reifenwerk Heidenau Verwaltungs GmbH
Geschftsfhrer: Dipl.-Ing. Hartmut Wolf
Registergericht Dresden, HRB 10453
UST - ID NR DE 161426426

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Original Message processed by David.InfoCenter
Subject: Motorradreifen Heidenau K60 fuer USA (05-Okt-2010 20:16)
From: Thomas (T.REX63)
To: verkauf@reifenwerk-heidenau.de

Guten Morgen,
Mit dem Heidenau K60 habt Ihr die Enduro-Welt weit ueber die Grenzen Deutschlands in Aufruhr gebracht. Endlich eine vernuenftige Alternative zum Continental TKC80.

Ich lebe in den USA und muss mich von den dortigen Haendlern (meiner ist Heindl Engineering = hervorragender Service) immer wieder vertroesten lassen, da der K60 in Ausfuehrung 150/70 B 17 M/C M+S, fuer die USA immer noch nicht zu haben ist. Viele 1200GS-Fahrer ziehen die 140er Greossen auf, wovon ich persoenlich nicht so begeistert bin. Die Foren sind voll davon (ADVrider, HUBB, etc.). Es kursieren die spektakulaersten Geruechte.

Daher meine 2-teilige Frage an Sie:

1.Wann koennen die US Dual Sportler damit rechnen das dieser fantastische Reifen in der 150er Groesse endlich ankommt?
2.Was ist der tatschliche Grund fuer diese quaelende Verzoegerung?

Mit herzlichem Gruss aus Atlanta, GA / USA

Thomas

Thanks for posting T-Rex63 - sadly my German isn't up to scratch and web translators are giving strange results!

I have spoken with the UK's Heidenau's importer and am awaiting to hear from him re the new K60 Scout and will post up.
It seems the Scout is a new tyre with new materials and also something to do with complying with new EU legislation.
As soon as I have his reply, I'll post up so that everyone can have it directly 'from the horse's mouth' so to speak!

answer to T.REX63
 

hi T.REX63
in reply......

Q1. What average speeds were y'all doing on wide open tarmac?
A..around 60 - 80 mph on tarmac - no more.

Q2. Anything special about tire pressure that would permit this kind of high mileage?
A..running them high for tarmac - between 38 -42 psi.

Q3. How far down have y'all taken the tire tread when you've reached 12,000 miles?
A..
to just below legal. ie the knobbles are still visible but the centre is flat! this makes for interesting cornering!

Q4. Did you also get 12k miles on the 1100GS with "teeks"?
A...yep

And....You may be interested to know that I have been able to get just over 20,000 miles on one rear TKC80. Admittidly this was 80% off-road. :clap:

Lisa I'm impressed. I've never heard of such high mileage on a TKC, and the only things I see you're doing differently from me are: riding a heavier bike faster than I do, and airing up significantly. If I were getting that kind of mileage, I'd never buy anything else for either of my bikes. Hmmmm.

Impressive indeed :eek3:. I can see how the general contact area of the tire increases with the center wearing down, thus lasting longer (possibly exponentially...).

Quite frankly, I'm too chicken to ride down to a "flat" center. Plus, the increased risk of getting punctures.

The most I've gotten comfortably out of a TKC is 4,500 miles (1200GS) at a ratio tarmac/dirt = 80/20. I made it a point not going over 75 mph. Fast acceleration/hard stopping is a non-issue with my riding style. I personally do not go below 1mm tread in the center.

Ditto T-Rex
Best I ever got on my 1200 was a smidge under 6000 riding loaded. IMHO, I just dont think they are a worthwhile investment unless you can afford to keep changing them especially at today's prices- I do not 'ride them down to canvass' as some do in the interest of my own safety.

I now stick (pardon the pun!) to Heidenau's K60 which, IMHO, are a fabulous all rounder travel tyre which suit my needs of 70% tar/bad roads and 30% trail and am looking forward to the new model the K60 Scout next year after the South Africans have tested them! I am told they always get first batch as have the best testing ground.
On the list, it shows that the 90x90x21 will be available - let's hope they also make the 130x80x17 so that I can shoe my old F650GS Dakar!

Heidenau Scout
 

Bertrand, just been looking at mynetmoto.com and they seem to have 19"&21" fronts and 140/80x17 rear but they're all M&S. I've found mynet good to deal with and offer good prices.
The review on the news section says they offer "god handling characteristics".....I'm tempted.

...a point to note
 

hi guys
just a short note..
a lot of the time we just dont have the choice to do anything but run our tyres for this amount of mileage...as we are in parts of the world where it's downright impossible to get any tyres of our size.
however, we did make a deliberate choice of using the TKC80's when we left the UK originally as we had tried and tested many 50/50's in the years prior.
dont ask me what they were now - its too long ago! maybe Simon would remember....

so - as we have to be careful with our tyres as we are not usually spoilt for choice- our hard and fast rule is 'never open up too fast or aggressively when pulling away from a standstill'. as this is what 'eats them'. ...and when you deflate for off-road make sure that you re-inflate immediately when you hit tarmac! dont do those last few tarmac miles on a low psi...!

I'm not sure what exactly makes the difference re our high mileage...but it does seem that we are able to get a lot more miles than our friends riding the TKC's..I m not sure if that is because we are doing a number of things differently or just one..?
its interesting though!

Our 18000km is the same as Lisa's 12000mi...so there's two examples of good mileage on the TKC 80's!

If not serious offroad I would absolutely recommend Avon Gripsters

My two bob's worth
 

I haven't ridden in South America but I have ridden a lot in dirt, gravel, mud in Australia, SEAsia, India, Nepal, Pakistan and now in Europe (yes there are dirt roads even in Switzerland!).

I learnt very quickly that Sand was not an option 2up with luggage so I try to steer clear of soft sand but we did get stuck in bulldust and sand on several occasions and perhaps knobbies like TKC80's would have helped...

On the whole we are very happy with the quality, longevity and reliability of the Metzler Tourances (not EXP!!) standard.

We have for our trips used them and the best milage (or kilometrage) was just over 17,000kms for both front and rear. On Average we get 12,000 kms from the rear and 15 - 17,000kms on front.

Without going into details about our riding style or the terrain, I can say that we were riding approx 70% tarmac and 30% other (mud, gravel, dirt) and the tyres were always reliable with the exception of thick mud. But if you learn to ride and adapt to riding in mud with these tyres or any other tyre for that matter then it's manageable.

I personally can't comment on other tyres but for my riding style I'm very happy and quite confident on the Tourances. So for now, unless I ride in softer surfaces (ie. mud, sand) I will stick with the Tourances.

Although I do really like the look of a GS with TKC80's :thumbup1:

I don't therefore you can't possibly....
 

Tyre threads are a bit like oil threads. No one is actually wrong because everyone is measuring things differently (and interspersing their comments with words like risk of punctures, crashing, danger, feel, grip etc. that they struggle to qualify in a meaningful way).

If a tyre manufacturer puts a wear indicator on their tyres then that is, for highway-legal tyres at least, the point at which a tyre could generally be considered 'finished' in an objective way (we know grip/water displacement can go-off long before then). Lisa has stated 12,000miles, which I imagine to be to the wear markers, and I believe that. A friend and I both had in excess of 10,000miles on our TKC rears (Africa Twins) and although it was not right to the wear indicator, I can't tell you how many more miles it would have done until it reached it. So I won't try.

Most people aren't too keen on the feel of flat-centred tyres but I don't think that is the important bit for overlanders. I want to know -> from a given sample of other overlanders, how far did that make of tyre get them on a bike that I can reasonably extrapolate to my bike/conditions.

I'm not saying that all tyres have these markers or that mileages on tyres should be a competition but I feel we owe to our fellow travellers to try to give information that we can qualify or make it clear otherwise.