Tyres Dual Sports ?

Fookin ell matt, nothing like planning ahead fella,, but lets try and have a somewhat of a summer 1st

They come standard (or did) on the Multi strada IIR. My dad really rated them in the wet, high silica content.

I did some braking practice in the rain t'other day & was quite astonished at the performance of the Pirelli A/T. I expected the open tread to struggle but even though I could feel the blocks moving it never let go & shifted a lot of water. Practicing around the cones in the wet felt equally secure, it was the rear Shinko which twitched, the Pirelli never moved. For the price, hard to beat & very versatile.

Only problem I have come across is the speed raiting on the front 150 km 95 mph :-(
I do take my bike to 130 sometimes and I cruise at about 80 quite a bit so I might stick a 17" wheel in my bike and get a higher profile front

On cold and wet tarmac, all-road tyres like Tourances or Distanzias are no match to modern tour-sport tyres - the latter allow you to go nearly as fast as in the dry! All raod tyres tend to wear unevenly as well. The positive profile of all-roads tyres is minimal so you get disppointingly little grip advantage on gravel. The TDM is a touring bike, so why bother anyway?

Horses for courses I guess. I used to ride on gravel with BT 021's, a tire I love on tar seal & adequate on gravel. I changed to dual purpose tires to increase the safety margin on gravel roads which is what you end up on here if you turn off the main drag. There are just so many to explore I could not resist. My riding now is probably 40% or more on gravel. They have increased the bikes versatility & fun factor, they do give substantially better grip off tar seal particularly where it counts, on the brakes & the pair fitted cost less than a rear BT 021 on the shelf. Mileage seems to be similar, neither tire is wearing quickly. The Pirelli front gives plenty of confidence on the road wet or dry but I admit the out right grip of the rear Shinko does not compare with a road tire. It's relatively easy to make it misbehave on dodgy wet overbanding, white lines etc. Nothing a sensible throttle does not fix.
I would not use these tires doing big tar seal miles, like motorway every day or a jaunt round Europe but they do have there place. Having said that I have done a couple of 1000k + rides two up loaded with luggage on hot roads with no issue at all.

Edited by harvey krumpet, 28 July 2012 - 10:45 pm.

Did you go for these in the end? If so, any good?

The speed rating put me off :-(