DL650 bad tyre combo ! What have you used?
 

Having done just about 100 miles on a recently acquired vstrom 650 I am amazed how poor the front feels. I've come to the conclusion it must be the tyres fitted. Front is a Trail-wing and rear is a Battle-wing
Its a shite combo !
I have never been a fan of mixed tyres on anything other than a garden tractor. The road holding on the front of this bike proves the point.
Last travel bike was a 650 deauville - yeah I know(I reckon it's a great bike) ......... Had Avon Storm 2 which were fab in wet or dry, got some impressive lean with them. Very confident ride indeed :thumbup1:

So far in 100 miles I have felt the wee front slip away on dry roads twice & once on the wet. Not a good feeling. I aint a speed freak either!

I have planned to change anyway. Not sure what yet, I think this year will likey be 90% tarmac so a 100% road tyre would be ok I guess. The battle wings read up ok and I must say I have not felt the back go apart from on mud.

What are you guys using on the paved roads? How are they in the wet?

Not on a weestrom, but road pilot 3s, front and back.
Excellent so far, after about 3K miles.

Whatever you get, and there is a lot of choice, I would say get DCT = dual compound technology; softer for the sides for the grip and harder in the centre for the longer life.

Right now, Pilot Road 3´s on a DL650-2012. They´re really great, probably the best full street tyres I´ve had on the Wee.

Before I´ve had Michelin Anakee I/II, Metzeler Tourance & Z6, Pirelli Scorpion and Bridgestone Battlewings on an older Wee, and they all beat the hell out of that crappy Trailwing you´ve got up front. Beyond me, why Suzuki still use them on the Wee... well, they are round, and black, and there must be a huge warehouse full of them in Japan, and they get them really really C_H_E_A_P :rofl:

I've used Metzeler tourance (good) and Michellin Anakee 2 (better) on ice and gravell as well as sandy pavement. My buddy has Heideneau k-60 's and thinks they're the best he's ever used on his wee. He's been riding v-stroms for years and I'd trust his judgement on that. He doesn't do a lot of off road though...

I have the k60 scouts on my DL650 and find them great. Haven't done heavy off road, but have ridden remote australian roads with them (read:sandy) and had no problems. They also last forever (roughly)

I'm 5500miles into a pair of Anakees and I think they are phenomenal! Only slight worry is wear rate - I think theyll make it just past 7000 but only just. But for the amount of confidence they give me it's worth the more frequent changes. Really can't recommend them enough - although I haven't tried anything else but the OEM.

Wear rate, on an Anakee - really? BTW, do you mean Anakee 1 or 2?

I can´t recall how much I´ve gotten out of the 2´s, but on the older Anakee 1´s (with two sets of them), I´ve ridden from Greece to the eastern end of Australia. On a DL650 with two people, lots and lots and lots of luggage and - yes, even that other set of Anakee I´s as spares for a long time! I did use a bit higher pressure because of the weight, about 2.4 bar front, 3.0 rear.

So I got about 16000 kms out of each set, and front and back tyres were nicely finished just about the same time, a neat bonus. Most of the time we were inside the tropics, so temperatures were quite high. I must say I didn´t expect them to last that well. Before that trip, I´d read a test of them (Anakee 1´s) in Motorrad, where they wore out much quicker, though they had tested with a 1200GS. But we certainly had more total weight than a big GS with only the rider on board.

Continental Trail Attacks
 

First, any tire for the first 100 miles or so needs to be treated gently and broken in, so that factory release agents in the rubber wear off. So that could be a factor right off.
Other than that I've used most tire brands but if you want to keep to an adventure touring profile (rather than pure street as in the Pilots) then the Continental Trail Attacks have been great. We travel 2 up and loaded, high speed, all road conditions and get around 21000 kms from a rear tire and 32,000 kms from a frt tire. Autobahns at >130 -160 kph. (Vstrom 1000 of course)
Givi E41 panniers and V46 top case.
Tourances have been great as well, and Anakees also. Bridgestone isn't a good selection though.

It is a second hand bike that he just picked so I am sure they would be scrubbed in, maybe air pressure is a bit low, that can cause that, plus if the bike has been lowered or raised, maybe the rake angle has changed, there are many factors with this bike that can cause it.

That said, I have not used all your other tyre combinations, but I have used many myself, K60 Scouts are the best overall imho for longevity and grip both in wet dry. I don't do mud unless I get caught out and I paddle sand ;)

Currently running the original K60 front(24,000km) and an Anakee II which is all I could buy in SEA, it seems to be handling it OK

Cheers
TS

Good point on the low tire pressure, it will definitely give that feeling.
As for tire pressures I learned from another HU member who learned it from an HU Michelin tire rep presenting at a meeting, to not be limited to the pressures on the sticker on your bike but to manage your tire pressures thru monitoring. Here's how it goes.
If your cold pressure and hot tire pressures vary by greater than 5-7% you are under-inflated, and if they don't vary 5-7% (increase) then you are over-inflated. Using his tire pressures as a start with 2 up riding and full gear our cold tire pressures went from 40 lbs to 47 lbs (rear) and 45 psi front. Our driving dynamics improved, some cupping that he had noticed on my rear tire disappeared after 1200 kms of using this new method. I highly recommend people try this.

Meanwhile, the question was ---------- as above.

By the way, the road pilot 3s have a very good, even excellent, pattern of sipes to dispel water between the tyre and the road surface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_(rubber)

Thanks for all the feed back guys keep em coming !
The tyre is well scrubbed in.
I have played with tyre pressure and it has made some improvement.

What I have noticed looking more closely at the wear pattern on the tyre, its not what I would expect? see pic attached. The red area has worn much more than the blue area leaving approx 1.5mm step down from the tyre centre blue edge to the red edge. Strange :confused1:

The pic is not my actual tyre !

Wow... That is some very serious mileage that you´re getting! You must be managing the tyre pressure thing perfectly, and also tyres have developed a lot in the last 5-10 years. Haven´t tried those Conti Trail Attacks myself, but think I should.

I think you will find that the Trailwing is OEM (and the Battlewing has been fitted later); the tyre fitting shops know how to read the "small print" on the tyre wall to tell if it was fitted in the factory, when new.
In any case, I had Trailwings on a new F650GS and they weren't great as a matched pair; and yes, they were replaced with Battlewings, front and back, which worked better.

You don't say how many miles these tyres have done (I guess you don't know) but that wear pattern (front, back or both??) suggests that the previous owner/rider knew a lot of curvy roads and spent more time leaned over than upright.
If so, .... :thumbup1:

Another vote for Heidenau here. You don't get much wetter that Yorkshire, the peaks and Wales in January!

The OEM Deathwings were binned at 600 miles. The Wee is a little top heavy but I've never known such a bad bike-tyre combo and I had MZ's on Pneumats. No idea why, these tyres have been fine on other bikes I've had. Something to do do with the 150 section rear maybe, F650's and the like are slimmer?

Andy