New Tires

I've been riding the stock Bridgestone Trailwings (TW41/TW42) on my 2016 Suzuki DR650S during the running in period, plus a few. The Trailwings are a dual sport tire, but high in the road/trail ratio at 80/20. Here in Florida I encounter a lot of soft surfaces like sand and mud so I need something a little more aggressive; certainly nothing less than a 50/50.

I considered a number of 40/60 up to 10/90 tires including the Continental TKC80 Twinduro, Dunlop D-606, Pirelli Rallycross and Shinko Big Block Dual Sport E-804/805. I landed on the Shinkos.

The Shinkos are a big block 40/60 rated dual sport tire that I think are in the ballpark of Continental TKC80 Twinduro performance, that I run on my KLR650. The Contis are an outstanding tire, but they wear fast and are expensive. I'm hoping to get some better life out of the Shinkos while still getting some good performance in the soft stuff here in Florida.

I purchased the Shinko Crossflys from Revzilla; $66.97 for the front and $91.09 for the rear, less $5 in 'zilla bucks I had. I don't mount my own tires so I had to pay another $80 to get that done. I'm perfectly capable of mounting my own tires, but it's such a hassle. I love working on my bikes, but I hate fighting with tires. On the other hand, if I'm going to blow through dual sport tires every 3,000 miles on two motorcycles, perhaps I just need to suck it up and do the mounting myself.

Anyway, I put a 130-80/17 E-805 on the rear and a 90-90/21 on the front. The stock rear tire size is actually 120-90/17. However, the Shinko fits in there with no problem. Nothing rubs; lots of room, not even close. Here's a look at the tires installed.

Next stop? I'll be running up to the Croom WMA near Brooksville, Florida on Wednesday of this week and seeing how my new Shinkos do on the many different surfaces and elevations that forest has to offer. I'll let ya's know how it goes.

Update:

Well, on Wednesday we had a really bad storm roll through here so I was pretty much stuck inside. But today (Thursday) it was a typical Florida Spring day...sunny and warm...so I headed out to the WMA. The good news is its usually better to ride the sandy forest roads the day after a rain storm. The rain packs it down a little.

I'm running 25 psi front and 28 psi rear on paved surfaces. When I got into the forest, I aired the tries down to 18 psi, both front and rear. That's where I found the Continental TKC80s to be pretty effective in sand. I ended up leaving them at that psi for the three hours I was in the forest, not feeling like the psi needed to be aired down any further.

The Rear E-805 did a good job in the sand and the mud holes that I had to navigate. There are some significant sand-laden ascents in the Croom WMA and the Shinko kept grabbing all the way up; no problems. I also took a peek a couple times coming out of some mud/silt washout areas to see how well they self cleaned; each time they'd channeled all the crap to the sides like they're supposed to do.  Not bad.

I thought the front did every bit as good as the Conti TKC80, even with the larger block pattern. I still cant push it like a non-DOT sandy tire, particularly in soft corners, but on the straights the E-804 gets right up on top of the sand with the big block rear E-805 pushing it along. It's not a white knuckle tire. I was very happy with it.

When I burn out the Contis on my KLR650 I'll at least put an E-805 on the rear.