I’ve been fielding a few questions regarding tires for my COBDR ride next month, so I thought I’d write this for everyone.
How “dirt focused” should your tires be?
The nature of ADV riding is a mix of pavement and dirt, and “dirt” can come in many flavors: easy dirt / gravel roads, loose sand or silt, loose rocky hill climbs, etc. So when choosing a set of tires, you’ll first need to assess what flavor of dirt you’ll be encountering and for how long / what percentage of your riding time will be on these surfaces.
These are my own personal perspectives:
I choose my tires based on the most gnarly terrain that I expect to encounter on a regular basis. This is my primary consideration - I’m usually wiling to compromise in other areas – ride quality on the street, tire longevity (sorta), noise, etc. That is, as a tire becomes more dirt focused, you’ll begin to have to compromise performance on the street, as well as in other areas. I generally don’t care about the pavement ride. This is a personal preference.
How can I tell if a tire is biased towards the dirt or towards the road?
Very simply, look at the volume of the empty space between treads or knobs. If the knobs, or treads, have a lot of empty space between them, then this tire is generally more focused towards performance in the dirt.
Which is more important, front or rear?
I’ve ridden tons of different tires, in tons of different terrain, and in a variety of tire wear conditions. In my experience:
A worn front tire will impact performance more than a worn rear tire. You’ll start to feel a worn front tire push in loose conditions, maybe drop into a rut more easily, etc. However, unless you’re stopped on a hill or need to get going in loose sand, a relatively worn rear tire is less noticeable. That is, you can usually get away with running a very well worn rear vs well run front tire. You’ll start to feel the degraded performance of the front more quickly.
The net is that a worn rear tire may move around a bit more, you may need to be more attentive on either stopped or low speed hill starts, etc. But when a worn front tire starts to push in loose conditions, that begins to not be fun…
Tire Recommendations:
This is where this thread gets dangerous, so I’m putting on my fire retardant suit…
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Most Dirty Combination:
My favorite tires for the best dirt-focused ride are Motoz RallZ, front and rear. If I’m doing a very important, multi-day, super gnarly ride, I would run these.
The caveat is the front: if you run this tire on the street with dirt PSI (see below), the front knobs will cup, wearing quickly in an odd way. So when I’m running this front I’ll be sure to air back up to >34psi when I get to pavement.
I’d say this is a 90/10 set, dirt/street. Motz tires are known for being very loud on pavement, and this combination…is loud for sure…but that’s what earplugs and Spotify are for.
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Slightly Less Dirty, Better Longevity
Since last season I’ve been running a Tusk 2Track front and Motoz Adventure rear. Both tires, but especially the front, have been wearing very, very well. The front in particular performs a tick less well than the RallZ in loose conditions, but this compromise is more than made up for in the increased longevity of the tire.
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50/50 Tire
I’ve never personally run these on the 990 but I’ve borrowed a 790 for several rides with Mitas E-07 Enduro front and rear. -
GREAT tires on the street
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Rear performs well, though not as well as the Motoz above
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The front definitely pushes in loose conditions, especially sand and especially at the entrance. After a quick wake up call at the entrance they track pretty well after that. I really began to appreciate the off-road ABS on the 790 when running this tire on loose descents. Not sure I’d trust the front on the 990, as I turn the ABS completely off. I’d certainly be riding much more conservatively.
Overall, this is a great BDR tire if you’re making long admin pavement sections on the front and/or back of the ride AND you’re aware of the compromised performance of the front in loose conditions, AND you’re experienced with loose terrain (ie, won’t get sketched if the front does its own thing for a tick), AND you have a good offroad ABS system.
If you don’t quite fit these conditions, then it’s worth going with one or similar dirtier pairings above and accept some street performance and longevity compromises.
On that note, it’s very valuable to have the ability to mount and balance your own tires, allowing you to swap tires in and out relatively easily depending on the mission. I’ve had a Rabaconda tire changer for several years, paired with a Tusk wheel balancing stand. I can have a new tire mounted and balanced in about 20 minutes / 1 beer.
If you combine this with searching Marketplace for used tires, you can affordably assemble a stack of used tires in good condition for a fraction of buying new.
What are your thoughts on tires, tire recommendations, etc?