32
DECEMBER 2020
By Duncan Bennett, Member #4171
A
s everyone would expect, this will definitely have an adventure riding flavour so may not have much nourishment for the BMWMCQ road warriors. Those of you who continue to read, and yes I know your name, will hopefully get something out of this opinionated treatise on motorcycle tyres. There are two periods of intense learning in the motorcycling life journey. The first period for everyone throwing the leg over is learning to relate motorcycle model numbers, ultimately without including the hint of the manufacturer’s name, with what the motorcycle actually looks like. A recent example of how far I have to go was reading BMW model C 400 X in a list, and assuming it was a rebirthed hyper-cool Dakar Enduro racer until the photo revealed it was a scooter. Oh, that’s right, C is scooter in BMW world, still lots to learn. XR, SV, GSX, GS, GT, GTL, R, K, F, XC, ZV, RS, CRF all mean something but it takes a while to become confident you aren’t about to head over to inspect a scooter in your motocross gear. Thank heaven for Google Images, in a few browsing moments you’ll be all over it. The second period is learning about tyres, so to hopefully save the adventure riding oriented punters some time, here are my personal top 5 countdown with Number 1 the best:
Tyre Number 5: Shinko E805 (Rear) E804 (Front) – good grip, good life, very stiff Reading tyre reviews doesn’t help much, rider A says they nearly died every time they went around a corner, rider B says they stick to all road surfaces like the proverbial baby pooh to a blanket. Tyres also
TIRED OF TYRES? have more subtle differences than motorcycles so Google Images doesn’t help much either, brand A has grooves that are 12.2mm deep and run at 77.3° to the rim while brand B grooves are 26.4mm apart and have compound X up the middle to increase life. What on earth does this mean when planning a ride around Australia? Does it scream like a cheesed-off Banshee when running on the highway? Not only does it take a while, but it can involve a lot of tyre purchases until you get it right. And even if you miraculously get it right first time you won’t know you got it right first time and so will then buy worse tyres the next time.
Tyre Number 4: Continental TKC80 – great grip, short life, and yes, I knocked him over A good place to start is think what sort of riding you do or want to do, with a large But applied. Hard experience involving bone breakage applied the But. Adventure tyres are given an On road:Off road ranking, for example a 90:10 tyre means it is “designed” for 90% on-road riding and 10% offroad riding. This is a bit like giving a rifle a Sitting on The Rack:Shooting at a Charging Buffalo ranking. A 90:10 rifle will have no stock or sights because they aren’t needed on the rack and it will still fire one round so you should be right on the rare occasions you need to drop that maddened buffalo. But. In other opinionated words – I select tyres for my “reasonable” worst-case farm road scenario, which doesn’t mean a Toby Price worst-case scenario on the second last day of Dakar. 50:50’s or thereabouts are the ideal for our type of riding – lots of bitumen but occasions and even hours of loose
