- Joined
- Jul 27, 2010
- Messages
- 5,511
- Reaction score
- 680
- Location
- Blouberg, Cape Town
- Bike
- KTM 890 Adventure R
Looking at new adventure bike launches it has once again been established that TKC80s are the default choice for off-road riding.
It is a good tyre, but you have to live with the side effects on tar - noisy, built in speed limiter @ 140km/h etc.
The TKC80 has just shown me how sensitive a bike can be to tyres. I have done +-4000km with a TKC80 Front on a F800GS. For tar you have to keep it well inflated - 250kPA+, to preserve the tread. The inevitable squaring off happened, and I decided to rotate the front so that it turns in the opposite direction.
This proved to be an interesting exercise. Apart from a different noise - blocks hitting the road straight on!, I found that the front wheel wobble is much less. With almost excessive middle strip block wear the bike started swerving heavily towards 140 (carrying a pillion solved the issue and the front wheel keeps the line), but after turning the front tyre around, the swerving is almost gone.
So, the degree of weaving depends a lot on the state of wear, direction of wear and tyre pressure.
It is a good tyre, but you have to live with the side effects on tar - noisy, built in speed limiter @ 140km/h etc.
The TKC80 has just shown me how sensitive a bike can be to tyres. I have done +-4000km with a TKC80 Front on a F800GS. For tar you have to keep it well inflated - 250kPA+, to preserve the tread. The inevitable squaring off happened, and I decided to rotate the front so that it turns in the opposite direction.
This proved to be an interesting exercise. Apart from a different noise - blocks hitting the road straight on!, I found that the front wheel wobble is much less. With almost excessive middle strip block wear the bike started swerving heavily towards 140 (carrying a pillion solved the issue and the front wheel keeps the line), but after turning the front tyre around, the swerving is almost gone.
So, the degree of weaving depends a lot on the state of wear, direction of wear and tyre pressure.
