Dear God…. Not ANOTHER tire review?!?
Yup... but on a tire that has – as near as I can tell – been virtually ignored by the forum here. I am talking not about the Mitas e07 but rather the e09.
Here is the freshly mounted e09 Dakar from Mitas
There is all kinds of chatter here about a wide variety of tires. Most ST riders run something closer to a 50/50 or 60/40 street to dirt ratio and there are lots of options out there in this genre. But what about pure knobbies? I bought my Tenere – aka Fancy (cuz she ain’t!) - to be an offroad machine and have been accused on more than one occasion by a few inmates here of taking her where she does not belong. But that’s how it goes… I have long subscribed to the philosophy that SnakeBitten has coined as either the WLDB (World’s Largest Dirtbike) or BDITW (Biggest Dirtbike in the World).
So I like knobby tires and I am willing to pay the price when it comes to the short treadlife that my chosen terrain and overeager right wrist begets. I will first off qualify that my review is limited in the sense that all my miles are mostly on backroads and gravel/dirt. I am not a high-mileage interstate traveler, never ride two-up, strive to avoid the rain like the plague, stay mostly in Tmode with TC off, and have the bike bone stock when it comes ECU flashing.
Furthermore... I am utterly tire agnostic. All these comments about how this tire or that tire allow one to initiate turns better or how one tire might be better at wet pavement than another is utterly foreign to me. I spoon tires on and push the Tenere the same regardless of her shoes. I started with whatever the PO had on there – maybe Battlewings - not sure, but they sucked big time. I have since gone through a K60 rear, a TKC rear, a BigBlock rear, and now onto this e09 rear. Interestingly, I have had a K60 on the front throughout these last 4 rears and love it.
Here is a nearly 2500 mile BigBlock next to a fresh e09 Dakar
So, the Mitas e09…? There is lots of info here on the much beloved e07 from Mitas but seemingly next to nothing on the e09. I saw a set in a photo here at the forum posted by Cosmic and it was so knobby and simply badass looking that it got me all excited. MX1 in Canada was the only NA supplier at the time but I soon found that MotoRace in the NE was getting their first shipment in and would be a US retailer. So I ordered the e09 Dakar for $183 delivered to my door. Woohoo!!!
Mounting was a bear, but made MUCH easier with my new-to-me HF tire mounting machine. The legendary stiffness and install difficulty of the K60 was rendered a joke when compared to this Mitas e09 Dakar. Lying on my cement garage floor, the K60 sidewall easily compresses to touch the other sidewall under my 180+ lbs. The e09’s sidewalls barely noticed I was standing on it and I could not touch sidewalls even with vigorous bouncing. These things are MEGA burly!!
Once on the bike… the tire just looks mean and aggressive – no two ways about it. OK, I admit, I am a sucker for the way a tire looks on bike. I am now 500 miles into the new e09 (approx 1/4 the life of a BigBlock) and feel that I can compare. I see no major difference in performance on road from any of the tires listed above. I can rage through the twisties and rub boot edges on pavement with any of these tires. Even as knobby as the e09 is, it shows no inhibition when pushed hard on pavement. I have not ridden in the rain in them yet, but like I said above… I avoid the rain and do not buy tires based on a performance parameter that I rarely explore.
Offroad, these tires are simply amazing! Here in Appalachia right now we have a ton of loose leaves down everywhere that can be quite slippery. And on yesterday’s ride we encountered some of the first frost heaved roads of the season. This produces a mud with an icy pudding-like consistency mud that encourages the backend of the bike to wander around. The e09’s hooked up and ate this stuff up with eager abandon and seemed well planted. The treads clear mud quickly and the aggressive lateral oriented side tread lugs helped dig in when the bike slid off into some of the ruts. I am extremely pleased with the ties and there is nothing so far that I do not like about them.
The biggest wildcard on these tires is going to be treadlife. They cost around $70 more than the Big Blocks which had been my favorite tire up to now. The Big Blocks came in at around $0.055 per mile ($110 for approx 2000 miles). If the e09’s can last a bit longer and get a miles-per -dollar ratio down close to that range, they may very well be the only tire that I run on Fancy. Right now at 500 miles in... they seem like they will last longer than the Big Blocks. Time will tell...
If you like knobbies, you owe it to yourself to try a set of these bad boys.
Yup... but on a tire that has – as near as I can tell – been virtually ignored by the forum here. I am talking not about the Mitas e07 but rather the e09.
Here is the freshly mounted e09 Dakar from Mitas
There is all kinds of chatter here about a wide variety of tires. Most ST riders run something closer to a 50/50 or 60/40 street to dirt ratio and there are lots of options out there in this genre. But what about pure knobbies? I bought my Tenere – aka Fancy (cuz she ain’t!) - to be an offroad machine and have been accused on more than one occasion by a few inmates here of taking her where she does not belong. But that’s how it goes… I have long subscribed to the philosophy that SnakeBitten has coined as either the WLDB (World’s Largest Dirtbike) or BDITW (Biggest Dirtbike in the World).
So I like knobby tires and I am willing to pay the price when it comes to the short treadlife that my chosen terrain and overeager right wrist begets. I will first off qualify that my review is limited in the sense that all my miles are mostly on backroads and gravel/dirt. I am not a high-mileage interstate traveler, never ride two-up, strive to avoid the rain like the plague, stay mostly in Tmode with TC off, and have the bike bone stock when it comes ECU flashing.
Furthermore... I am utterly tire agnostic. All these comments about how this tire or that tire allow one to initiate turns better or how one tire might be better at wet pavement than another is utterly foreign to me. I spoon tires on and push the Tenere the same regardless of her shoes. I started with whatever the PO had on there – maybe Battlewings - not sure, but they sucked big time. I have since gone through a K60 rear, a TKC rear, a BigBlock rear, and now onto this e09 rear. Interestingly, I have had a K60 on the front throughout these last 4 rears and love it.
Here is a nearly 2500 mile BigBlock next to a fresh e09 Dakar
So, the Mitas e09…? There is lots of info here on the much beloved e07 from Mitas but seemingly next to nothing on the e09. I saw a set in a photo here at the forum posted by Cosmic and it was so knobby and simply badass looking that it got me all excited. MX1 in Canada was the only NA supplier at the time but I soon found that MotoRace in the NE was getting their first shipment in and would be a US retailer. So I ordered the e09 Dakar for $183 delivered to my door. Woohoo!!!
Mounting was a bear, but made MUCH easier with my new-to-me HF tire mounting machine. The legendary stiffness and install difficulty of the K60 was rendered a joke when compared to this Mitas e09 Dakar. Lying on my cement garage floor, the K60 sidewall easily compresses to touch the other sidewall under my 180+ lbs. The e09’s sidewalls barely noticed I was standing on it and I could not touch sidewalls even with vigorous bouncing. These things are MEGA burly!!
Once on the bike… the tire just looks mean and aggressive – no two ways about it. OK, I admit, I am a sucker for the way a tire looks on bike. I am now 500 miles into the new e09 (approx 1/4 the life of a BigBlock) and feel that I can compare. I see no major difference in performance on road from any of the tires listed above. I can rage through the twisties and rub boot edges on pavement with any of these tires. Even as knobby as the e09 is, it shows no inhibition when pushed hard on pavement. I have not ridden in the rain in them yet, but like I said above… I avoid the rain and do not buy tires based on a performance parameter that I rarely explore.
Offroad, these tires are simply amazing! Here in Appalachia right now we have a ton of loose leaves down everywhere that can be quite slippery. And on yesterday’s ride we encountered some of the first frost heaved roads of the season. This produces a mud with an icy pudding-like consistency mud that encourages the backend of the bike to wander around. The e09’s hooked up and ate this stuff up with eager abandon and seemed well planted. The treads clear mud quickly and the aggressive lateral oriented side tread lugs helped dig in when the bike slid off into some of the ruts. I am extremely pleased with the ties and there is nothing so far that I do not like about them.
The biggest wildcard on these tires is going to be treadlife. They cost around $70 more than the Big Blocks which had been my favorite tire up to now. The Big Blocks came in at around $0.055 per mile ($110 for approx 2000 miles). If the e09’s can last a bit longer and get a miles-per -dollar ratio down close to that range, they may very well be the only tire that I run on Fancy. Right now at 500 miles in... they seem like they will last longer than the Big Blocks. Time will tell...
If you like knobbies, you owe it to yourself to try a set of these bad boys.
