Asia trip, extra set of tyres?
 

Heading to Turkey in October, plan to put new (tubeless) tyres on my DL650 maybe in Athens or Ankara. Some street-enduro type, like Metz Tourance or Michelin Anakee. Expect to get around 10.000kms out of the rear, maybe 15.000 from the front.

Will then be heading to Iran, then on to Pakistan and then India, traveling 2-up, so will be quite heavily loaded, even without an extra set of tyres. Aluminum side panniers, plastic top box, some camping gear on top of it all... so I dont have any good place on the bike to keep them, can probably figure out some place, if absolutely necessary, but they will mean a lot of extra weight&space placed badly.

So now Im thinking, is it absolutely necessary or not? I will be carrying tubes, tyre bars & other necessary equipment to fix punctures... the worst-case scenario is of course to get a real bad one somewhere in the middle of nowhere, like a long cut from a rock, thats just impossible to repair. The tubes might help me then, but theres no guarantee that the damaged tyre would last for several thousand km´s after that. I wont be riding hard on such a load, in fact I´ll be going real slow especially if the roads are bad. Not very likely to destroy a tyre completely, but of course I´ll never know.

If Ive understood correctly, there will be NO tyres available for such machines anywhere east of Ankara all the way up to India (and might be hard to find even in India)? And I hear there might be some big import taxes, in case you need to order new tyre/tyres to places like Iran, Pakistan or India? And I will definitely need to replace them in India anyway, as we plan to spend some time there to go around the country.

This info would naturally tell me to just play it safe and take an extra set (I can get them real cheap from my home country, so the only real problem would be transporting them). On the plus side would be that I wouldnt have to worry too much to find an extra set, even if I dont hit that worst-case scenario.. the plan would be to head to Thailand after India, and from there I know I can get them no problem.

My schedule is not very tight, so if getting new tyres would mean 1, or even 2 weeks of waiting, its not a disaster. If I could count on freight companies like DHL or TNT to get me new ones relatively quickly, and at a tolerable price, then I would go without an extra set. But I dont know how it would work over there.

Any thoughts and/or personal experience about this tyre thing, and regarding to that region, would be highly appreciated!

Your assumptions are correct: Tires are hard to get in Pak and India and custom fees are quite high (180% in Pak and 500% of value in India for motorbike spare parts, do not know if those rates are applicable for tires as well).

On the other hand, you might get more out of your tires than you think. Personally, I made more than 25000 k out of a rear Tourance, and more than 22000 out of a front, albeit on a R 100 GS.

User Bheddist made around 30000 k out of a Mitas E 07 with his DR 650 AFAIK.

Regards

Lars

If something happens in Turkey, most companies ship tires at the same day and u could have it at the other day. So np even if you are in the east of Ankara. :) If you have any problem in Turkey, send me a mail. I try to help you as much as I can.

Ozgur

Hi ;

You can find tires in Iran too ....

00-98-21-882 39 84-85-86-87-88
or
0913 220 3530 ( Hamid Kianpise- speaks good english )

First numbers are the numbers of Nouriani Entetprises-BMW importer of Iran. The second numbers are the head mechanics mobile number. They have a great place in Tehran and very capable staff. Your bike will be under protection 24 hrs day and you also will be taken care of.

Your tires might last longer ...but there is always a possibility as such ....


It happened between Taftan - Quetta ... rather paved road .... Its a time when you are glad you were "over cautious" ....