K 60- take the sport out of sport touring?

yukondood

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wore out the battlewings, threw on some tourances and was happy around town, highways and mild off road. Threw on some k 60 and so far feel very cautious around town and especially in long sweeping corners, took the tenere up a trail that is a minor challenge on my WR and had a pile of fun on the k 60's. They had great off road grip, puked the mud and dirt out of the tread. Very happy off road and moderately happy on paved road. Heading up North Canol Road- potential for slick, bumpy, rocky, silty shit. Then up the dempster. Sure I will put a set of tourances back on after these 2 trips.
Just my 02 cents
 

twinrider

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I wick it up pretty good in the twisties and have been riding the k60s as hard as I did with the oem battleaxes or the PR2s on my TDM. Never experienced any loss of grip and they corner very well. Will be buying them again.
 

macca

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I'd agree with the OP. Some 4k miles and even the sightest aggression on the throttle has the T/C light winking in the dry and that's vertical, I can feel the rear starting to walk if doing it when leant over so for me the K60 makes me ride with a very neutral throttle hand when cornering (in the dry!) and in the wet I ride like a nanny. That said the front (so far) seems to hang on fairly well given the limitations the rear places on the bike.
 

MrTwisty

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I'm on my 2nd set of K60's now and they are definitely a compromise, but then again, everything dual-sport is a compromise. The K60's squirm a bit on the street and don't give me a confident feeling, but I've never had them step out though I've pushed them hard enough to scrape the pegs. However, wet roads are a different matter. They pretty much suck on wet pavement.

The K60's certainly aren't perfect, but considering the high mileage, good performance off-road and decent performance on-road, I'll probably keep buying them.
 

rush2112

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Re: Re: K 60- take the sport out of sport touring?

MrTwisty said:
I'm on my 2nd set of K60's now and they are definitely a compromise, but then again, everything dual-sport is a compromise. The K60's squirm a bit on the street and don't give me a confident feeling, but I've never had them step out though I've pushed them hard enough to scrape the pegs. However, wet roads are a different matter. They pretty much suck on wet pavement.

The K60's certainly aren't perfect, but considering the high mileage, good performance off-road and decent performance on-road, I'll probably keep buying them.
Same here.



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redneckK20

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I don't mind the K60's on road.. I ride the hell out of mine, street and dirt, and they handle it pretty well. I drag pegs all the time on them.
 

greg the pole

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you do know it's basically a knobby tire...compromise is it.

my mitas are better on road, but wear much faster, compromise
 

terryth

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The k-60's get the job done on the street with decent traction at least in the dry. If you can live with the vibes and howling noise (which doubles as soon as you lean over), live with their horrible tracking of the rain grooves on the interstate (making me think I was back in the 80's when living in SoCal riding the interstates) and learn to live with how crappy they feel turning in and while leaned over, they do stick, just don't feel good about doing it. I recently did two 3-day weekend trips in a row with the K-60's maybe having 200 miles on them before the trips. One to arkansas 500 miles there, 200 miles off pavement in the national forests, and 500 miles back. One to Wisconsin, 500 miles there, 400 miles of the best twisties that WI has to offer and 500 miles back. They did ok on the pavement and were quite awesome in the gravel and dirt, and stuck decently in the twisties, once you learned to ignore how they were feeling and trust them. Since being back, I took them off because they were just getting too annoying for the 250 miles a week I commute and my only upcoming trip is going to be a street only ride to Arkansas in Sept. Plus, I was only going to get maybe 6-7 K out of the rear, I killed off 1/2 the tread depth in just over 3000 miles for the rear, and it was all ready squared off enough to make corner turn in high effort. I put on pilot road 3 trails and so far for the one bit of fun I have on my commute (a roundabout on the way out of town) the difference in cornering fun and feel is night and day different from the K-60s. They are in the shed for possible use for dirt specific stuff in the future, but for general street use, they are history.
 

scott123007

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I get way more enjoyment kicking someone's ass in the twisties with K-60's or Shinko 705's on my bike, than street only tires. What fun is that? ;D
 

sportsguy

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I'm picking up a used set on Sunday (less than a thousand miles, $160 for both tires, excellent condition, no plugs, etc.). Going to try them on a dual sport ride at the end of the month. :)
 

tpak

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scott123007 said:
I get way more enjoyment kicking someone's ass in the twisties with K-60's or Shinko 705's on my bike, than street only tires. What fun is that? ;D
The Shinko is an amazingly capable tire, especially for the price. Wears fast, but again, for the price ....

Had them on my Vstrom and may put one on the S10 just for kicks to see how it does.
 

528Hz

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I have run mitas e07 dakars and k60 scouts and they are both wonderful tires. my 240 pound butt and 120 pounds of load in the rear take some nasty twisties at high speeds. Perhaps you should look into suspension adjustments/upgrades.
 
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