long life 80/20 or 90/10 dual sport tires

[Rob Kleinschmidt]

I will be buying a new set of tires for a cross country round trip.
This
might include some unpaved roads but probably no serious dirt riding.

I currently run Avon Gripsters and in the past have run Metzler
Tourance.
I'm reasonably happy with Gripsters but definitely got more miles from
the Tourance tires.

Bike is a BMW R100GS. currently running 90/90/21 and 130/80/17

Suggestions much appreciated.

[Mark Olson]

Sleazy is probably the guy to ask among the few who still poke their
head in here from time to time.

I sent him a PM on AR.

[sleazy]

Rode an 1150GS for ~75k miles or so. I tried several brands and kept
coming back to the Avon Distanzias. I tried Tourances, TKC80s and a few
others. Average miles per set was about 12k with the Avons. They worked
well on dirt roads, some places I shouldn't have been with a huge pig of a
bike offroad and on road touring the US.

Best price I consistently found was at Derby Cycles. www.derbycycles.com

[Mark Olson]

On 4/3/2012 3:14 PM, sleazy wrote:

> Best price I consistently found was at Derby Cycles. www.derbycycles.com

I've ordered tires from them in the past and will do again if they are
competitive. swmototires.com and compacc.com are worth checking as well,
and denniskirk.com is worth a look if you are willing to go through the
lowest price check rigamarole. I've bought tires from all of these:

http://www.derbycycles.com/
http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/
http://www.compacc.com/
http://www.swmototires.com/
http://www.denniskirk.com/

[Doug Payne]

I've gotten good mileage out of a pair of Heidenau K60's on my F800GS. A
little "knobbier" than Tourances (which I also like and have used a lot)
and a little rougher on the street, but nothing that would put your
hands to sleep, say. I'm running a 140 rear (BMW stock is 150), but I
think they come in 130's as well. Might be a bit harder to find, and
some people have reported rim-leak issues with running them tubeless.
I've got tubes so no direct experience with that. Two friends of mine
reported 18,000 km out of these on the same bike as mine, mostly highway
touring. I think my right hand is a bit more 'active' than theirs, best
I've done is about 15,000 km. Heidenau also have a Tourance look-alike,
K76 I think, which I've not used, but might consider.

I also ran one pair of Michelin Anakees which got similar mileage to the
Tourances, about 12,000 km I think. They were OK, I didn't like 'em
quite as much, for reasons I can no longer remember exactly. Nothing
serious, just a personal 'feel' thing. Others seem to like them. Some of
my pals have used Kenda 761's, another Tourance look-alike, on their
airheads with reasonable results. There's a whole wack of others out
there, like Dunlop D607's, Avon Distanzia's, Pirelli Scorpions, none of
which I've actually used. A really good deal on a knobbier tire is
Michelin T63's, but they're not likely what you're after and would
probably not last cross-country and back. I use those on my smaller
dual-sport.

[Snag]

Jake Wilson has had good prices when I've been tire shopping . Used to
have free shipping , but that may have changed , it's been a while since I
bought tires . SouthWest Mototire has also had good deals in the past .
--
Snag
Learning keeps
you young !

[Mark Olson]

Ah, that's the one I was trying to remember when I posted that list,
but I had misremembered it as "James" something and couldn't find it
when I was googling the FJR forum. I haven't ordered from JW yet.

[Rob Kleinschmidt]

On another forum, someone suggested Michelin Anakees.
Has anybody run these ? What was your experience with
mileage, grip etc ?

[sleazy]

Never tried 'em. I have used Pilot Road 2s and loved their longevity
and stickiness. They are not 80/20 tires, however.
--
sleazy
IBA#41627
Veni, vidi, velcri
I came, I saw, I stuck around

[Doug Payne]

On 05/04/2012 12:17 PM, Rob Kleinschmidt wrote:

> On another forum, someone suggested Michelin Anakees.
> Has anybody run these ? What was your experience with
> mileage, grip etc ?

I put maybe 13,000 km on a set of these on my F800GS, a couple of years
ago. They were 'OK', sort of comparable to Tourances, but on that bike I
found they had a bit of a vague feeling, especially in the rain. Others
that I know have liked them. I didn't intensely *dislike* them, just
preferred other tires over them.

[Mark Olson]

Having just purchased a KLR650, which included two brand new yet to
be mounted OEM Dunlop tires sourced from a Kawasaki dealer[1], I will
be able to give an accounting of their performance in a few weeks.
Not that I expect anything great, but they should be OK. That is
the first time I ever heard of someone buying OEM replacement tires
from a dealership.

[1] I think the rear is a K750, not sure about the front.