Long Distance Touring Tires

[EricV]

Re: the K60s, there are plenty of vendors, but Jaxon at RideOnADV is competitive in pricing and frankly, why not support a fellow forum member that's also a businessman? He ships tires pronto and is easy to deal with, you just have to accept it takes a phone call instead of midnight typing on the keyboard. Not such a big deal. ::008:: Bonus, he knows what he has in stock. He's not just a sales flunky, he's the owner and knows his products.

 

[snakebitten]

Way too "easy to deal with"

That's the problem, for some of us.

 

[Ramseybella]

I can agree and am all for supporting a fellow member but life is not all in a bubble or we would all stay at home and not see past the horizon.
I merely went out of my way to find other prices for a fellow member. O

 

[Duconce]

I hope you are sitting down, the Earth really is flat

 

[EricV]

I hope you are sitting down, the Earth really is flat

Well yeah, if you're in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska.... ::025:: As for you, head SE into West Virginia and you'll find plenty of 'not flat'. PA has a fair amount of fun, shaded, twisty roads too, but you know that already.

'Here there be monsters', got the stones to go ride them?

 

[Ramseybella]

Tires?
Lets move on shall we? ::003::

::021::

 

[terryth]

The pilot road 3 trails are awesome, got about 2500 on a set so far and very happy with them. The stock battle wings are pretty good also and less expensive than other options and will probably use them again sometime, but I'm a tire whore and will probably try the trail attacks next. I replaced the battle wings at 7000 miles with Shinko 705 radials with probably a couple of K left in the life of the rear. The shinko rear was complete toast at 4500 miles. The shinko's were decent tires for the price, but only marginally better than the stones on gravel roads and had some noticeable vibration from the front tread around 50-60 mph but otherwise performed decently on the street. They were replaced with a set of K-60's. To disappoint the K-60 fanboys, I removed them after 3500 miles. With two weekends of riding hard twisties and some long distances, I wore off more than 1/2 the tread depth in 3000 miles, so I don't think I would have gotten anywhere even close to 10K out of them. They were awesome in the gravel and dirt but only marginal as street tires. Where they always stuck well, they felt like crap doing it and were very noisy and vibey. After the trips with the K-60's where I did do several hundred miles of Arkansas forest service roads and ATV trails where they were awesome, it was back to commuting 65 miles a day for work and the vibes, noise, and feel were just too annoying in day to day use. If I do something like the trans Labrador highway again someday with 1000 miles of gravel during the trip I might be using the K-60's again, but for day to day use on a bike that spends 90% plus of its time on the pavement they are just sucky.

 

[EricV]

You poor commuter bastard! ::025:: That's what cars are for!!!

Thanks for the report. ::008::

 

[Karson]

You missed one:


K60
Rideonadv.com - Jaxon - 817 831-9700

x2

 

[terryth]

A bike beats a cage any day to spend time on

As long as its above 45 F or so and there isn't snow and ice on the ground

You poor commuter bastard! ::025:: That's what cars are for!!!

Thanks for the report. ::008::

 

[sail2xxs]

A bike beats a cage any day to spend time on

::026::

Chris

 

[EricV]

A bike beats a cage any day to spend time on

As long as its above 45 F or so and there isn't snow and ice on the ground

In all seriousness, think hard about that. Really. You enjoy riding. ::008:: But riding in heavy traffic with people more zoned out and distracted really does increase the stress and risk levels of riding a motorcycle. I rode almost exclusively for 10 years and it slowly sucked the fun out of riding due to the crappy commuting in heavy traffic. Just too often people were trying to kill me, and getting too close to succeeding. When I moved to the city for work, losing the 40 mile urban commute across the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and began fighting traffic every day for a 5 mile commute, and any other errands or trips, it just got to the point where I'd have near death events 2-4 times a week. Really close calls or actual physical contact with other vehicles. And this is in an area that doesn't use lane sharing, has wide lanes and I wasn't slicing and dicing traffic. Just aggressive drivers, fighting the urban commute every single day.

I stopped riding after a few years of that because riding wasn't fun any more. After fighting traffic all week, I didn't even want to go for a nice ride on the weekend. YMMV, but you can buy small cars that get equal or even better gas mileage than the Super Ten now and for me, saving the bike for riding that I enjoy is an important thing. It's not the time you spend on the bike, it's the quality of that time.

 

[thfraser]

I guess you get used to it. I've commuted in the DC area on mostly my bike for most of the past 15 years that I have lived here. I much prefer driving my bike than my car or truck. Many of my co-workers think I'm nuts. But it gives me HOV (high occupancy vehicle lanes) access. I can get around the idiots that often take up a lane and a half with their cars. And I have much better acceleration than the vast majority of the cars around me (if I want to use it). Plus, I like that it affords me more exits paths to choose from if there is a developing situation. Paths that are not available to a cage. However, I will not commute on my bike in icy conditions. That honestly scares me. I don't mind cold, just don't like icy and snowy conditions. I feel much more comfortable riding my bike to work than my car. Even with the crazies in the cages around me, I just feel more comfortable riding my bike to work. But that is my personal choice.

Back to tires, we have digressed. Longevitiy, I have put more miles on my K60's than any tire I've ever owned in the past. I know have 15k+ miles on them and I still have tread left and I have not yet hit the wear bars. A friend has Avon Roadrunners on his Thruxton and he has 16 on those tires and they look really good (saw them this past Monday). Doubt they are available for the S10, but that is also impressive mileage for a tire. I also talked to some Harley folks last Saturday. One of them was running the Dunlops designed for the Harley and he stated he managed to get 20k+ miles out those tires.

 

[sail2xxs]

I had exceptional mileage out of the Metzler ME-880s I had on my V-Strom. I sold the bike after 13k miles (it was a 3 month filler while waiting for the Tenere) and the tires showed very little wear. If I were to go back to having a street only bike, I'd have ME-880s on it for sure. They do take a while to warm up, and rain performance was fine for me, but I tend to corner pretty conservatively in the rain anyway. On the highway, rain performance was excellent.

Chris

 

[avc8130]

Riding the motorcycle to work is about the only reason I go to work these days...

ac

 

[sail2xxs]

Riding the motorcycle to work is about the only reason I go to work these days...

ac

I had a job like that for 11 years. Totally know where you're coming from.

Chris

 

[terryth]

My commute is probably different than some. It's about 33 miles one way from my house and takes me about 35 minutes to complete. I live in a small town and it's about a mile and two traffic lights to get out of town. Then about 17 miles of two lane with a few curves before getting on one interstate for about 9 miles that merges to another interstate for about 5 miles. The place I work at is right off the interstate on an industrial road for about a mile that doesn't get any through traffic. Then there are the hours I work. I usually leave around 3-3:30 pm, well before rush hour, so traffic on the interstates is moderate to light and usually moving pretty fast. I leave work sometime around 2-3 am and am lucky to see 10 other cars the entire way home and pretty much have the roads to myself. I work Monday-Thursday so every weekend is a three day. I have some rigid industries auxiliary lights for the ride home. I have a Toyota Camry Hybrid that I drive in winter months that averages about 35 mpg on the commute and get 45-48 mpg with the ST. But in the end, it evens out, cost wise, if you include the tire costs on the bike.

In all seriousness, think hard about that. Really. You enjoy riding. ::008:: But riding in heavy traffic with people more zoned out and distracted really does increase the stress and risk levels of riding a motorcycle. I rode almost exclusively for 10 years and it slowly sucked the fun out of riding due to the crappy commuting in heavy traffic. Just too often people were trying to kill me, and getting too close to succeeding. When I moved to the city for work, losing the 40 mile urban commute across the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and began fighting traffic every day for a 5 mile commute, and any other errands or trips, it just got to the point where I'd have near death events 2-4 times a week. Really close calls or actual physical contact with other vehicles. And this is in an area that doesn't use lane sharing, has wide lanes and I wasn't slicing and dicing traffic. Just aggressive drivers, fighting the urban commute every single day.

I stopped riding after a few years of that because riding wasn't fun any more. After fighting traffic all week, I didn't even want to go for a nice ride on the weekend. YMMV, but you can buy small cars that get equal or even better gas mileage than the Super Ten now and for me, saving the bike for riding that I enjoy is an important thing. It's not the time you spend on the bike, it's the quality of that time.