home Articles BikeBandit.com – Adventure Motorcycle & Dual-Sport Motorcycle Tires

BikeBandit.com – Adventure Motorcycle & Dual-Sport Motorcycle Tires

The BikeBandit.com motorcycle parts store offers a wide range of motorcycle tires & other motorcycle accessories to get your bike all setup for your next adventure. They also offer live online chat to help you with your tire buying decisions.

There are a number of key details to consider when purchasing a set of tires for your Adventure or Dual-Sport motorcycle. They relate to your dual-sport ADV motorcycle size, the specific types of riding you plan on doing including the ratio of road time vs. off-road time you will spend during a typical ride. The weather and road conditions are always a key factor for all on-road and off-road tires.

Your tires primary function is to provide enough traction to get you where your going and hopefully have some fun along the way. Asphalt & concrete roads provide relatively consistent traction compared to off-road riding in dirt, mud, sand & rocky conditions. So make sure you select a set of tires that will reflect your type of riding.

 

Adventure & Dual-Sport Motorcycle Tires

 

Important motorcycle tire characteristics to consider:

  • Knob Size: determines how much of the tire’s surface area makes contact with the trail or road. The larger the tire surface area that makes contact with the road, the more traction is available.
  • Tread Depth: For dirt riding, this determines how much dirt, mud, sand or loose gravel material you can displace to get down to the firmer, better-traction surface underneath. The deeper the tread, the more material is displaced.
  • Pattern Shape: “Pattern” refers to the grooves and channels that are cut into the tread. This determines how well the tire provides grip in wet and dry conditions. Also, those open spaces (or voids) between the tread provide room for displaced material to move to, allowing deep knobs to gain better traction. Larger voids release mud more easily and keep your tire from gumming up.

 

Here’s some road vs. dirt ride ratio examples:

90% pavement – 10% dirt: tires like the Dunlop TR91 radial are for this application – good pavement tire with fair off-road performance.

75% pavement – 25% dirt: a good performance & value tire is the Shinko 705’s. They have really good pavement manners as well as behaving surprisingly well off-road, whether it be on fire roads or trails.

50% pavement – 50% dirt: if your riding is going to be close to the same off & on-road time and your looking for good performance the Kenda 784’s is a good value tire that performs respectfully in both conditions.

 

 

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