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

hope this makes sense !
 

The back tyre ( battlewing) is quite new - less than 1000miles ??
The front trailwing no idea but about half worn I guess?

If it were "curvy road syndrome" I would expect to see a equal wear band running around the tyre. The wear on this tyre is just on each of the tread chunks for want of a better description but just the red bits on pic. The outer tread chunks and inner "blue" chunks are proud of the "red chunks" :confused1:

Maybe the previous owner ran it flat for a long time for some reason, off road perhaps?

Anyway it has to go its just not good - had a wet journey today and it was terrible.

The deathwings on the front of my XT have sort of that goofy wear also, some of the knobs are 1/8" shorter than the one right next to it. My bike acts like its on glare ice going down the gravel roads, even on pavement it is jerky like I've had a few pints too many. I have a set of IRC's GP110R, They had good ratings but probably not in the same class as Anakee's or Pirelli Scorpions( I have a front Scorpion ready to go on an XL, Dunlop 606 rear for more offroad on that bike).

Glad some else has this weird tread wear. I have scratch my head a lot trying to work out why and wondered if there was an issue with the bike! I agree it does feel a bit like being on ice in the wet on tarmac for me. I have nearly finished the tread on my one, can't wait to get new "shoes" on it - perfect timing for a trip :D Probably go with Battlewings for now, mainly because I have one here that's virtually unused the correct size for the back. That should see the summer trip out ok.

I wonder if they have different compound in some of the knobs. It just doesn't seem possible for them to actually wear that way but they do. Its like some are hard and wear resistant and mixed in some are soft and get chewed up faster.doh

Trip finished 0ver 40K on frt > 22000 rear
 

So we have just finished our latest trip in Europe. What a blast!
Changed oil today and was entering info into my maintenance database.
Noticed when I updated mileage that I have now gotten over 40,000 kms on the frt Conti Trail Attack, and over 22500 kms on the rear tire.(same brand).
You can see a recent picture of the bike we took at the Moto Guzzi factory and the tread appearance.
Visit the site at : Two Wheels move the Soul

10000KM of mostly road on my K60's rear is 55%ish and front is 70-80%

I don't think you can beat the Michelin Anakee 3's. I've talked to several that have this tire on their bikes and they really like them.

This past summer I sat in on a Michelin tire presentation at the BMW rally in Oregon and listened to some of their engineers. What they said made sense to me.

I plan on trying them when I replace the factory stock tires. The stock front does feel a bit odd and I've upped the air temp to 36 lbs which has helped. I travelled mostly paved roads so I don't need an aggressive off road type of tire.

Update so far
 

Having removed the rubbish tyre from the front in favour of a battlewing I must say it has been a great improvement. A couple of good tours and around 10K on it has given me much more faith in the front end on paved roads. Off road on the hard packed dirt and gravel its been OK for me 2 up with the wife as well. But on the slightest mud, it gets very interesting............. :oops2:

more strange wear patterns
 

Still on the wee strom - Well having finished off the Battlewings I went for Metzler Tourance next. Has been great for what its been on so no real complaints. But..........I did not expect the front to wear out before the rear. After around 20,000 miles the front is very done all round, centre and sides. The rear however has loads left on it. Both were fitted at the same time. The rear is square/flattened for sure but load of rubber left.

Any one else go through the front first? is this normal?

For the record I aint a speed freak, don't brake hard, use the rear brake, don't lock up the front or wheelie on the front wheel. Just normal touring 2 up, on paved , dirt , & gravel.