Excellent summary on tires edde!

High ambient temp plus high speed = fast wear. Add heavy bike, rough Mex. roads (Baja pavement is like a cheese grater) and wear increases more.

Changing conditions certainly requires pressure adjustments but that's not always practical or posible. With group dual sport rides sometimes we are switching from paved to dirt 3 or 4 time before lunch. And NOBODY is waiting around while you fiddle around with tires. If you know the way and are fast, you can stop to do this and ride alone all day. (which some prefer)

In these cases I go with compromised pressures. On my DR I go with 18 front / 20 rear (stock pressurers are 22/25). On the DL1000 about 24 front / 28 rear. (stock is ? 34/36 ? )

On the DR this works OK, but on the heavier Vstrom the tires really heat up hitting paved twisties at speed. A compromise for sure and faster wear is the result.

Going solo I can take more time to change pressures if needed. But if I have only a short dirt section I'll leave the stock pressures and ride accordingly.
(slow and careful with the front brake)

I didn't think about the TKC's being two-ply...a worrying point for certain.

In my enduro days we went with 4 ply knobbies, usually Metzelers or Pirelli's
that have (or had?) 4 ply and even 6 ply tires back then. These were like ISDE tires I believe. Not sure what's available now...but man ...these suckers
are TOUGH....nearly impossible to wear out a front dirt riding and the rears lasted well unless you were doing serious rocks at speed. Impossible to change in the field. (for me) Not good motocrossers though. (too stiff)

I'm hoping HD tubes will mitigate some of this 2-Ply worry. They should resist pinching better. Also, I won't be attacking the rocks too hard fully loaded,
just keeping a good pace and trying to avoid the worst hazards.

Half of survival off road is reading the trail and good vision. Most novice riders look about 10 ft. ahead. A huge and basic mistake. They also sit. Standing, breathing and looking about 50 yds. up the trail is the difference between picking your way along like a Burro and flying. Ask any desert racer.

It's true, tires are very complex. I've been lucky enough to have attended several tire intros with the engineers with all the charts, graphs and power point shows. The Metzeler guys do an excellent job with this. Dunlop are a bit arrogant, Avon are great and just say...."get on the race track and we'll talk later...and don't forget your bag of free swag!" Gotta love that.

Did you guys know the TKC is made in Korea? Probably made in the same
factory with Duro's, Kenda's, Maxxis !

Patrick

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Patrick passed Dec 2018. RIP Patrick!