Upgrading Your Dual Sport Tires
Compared to the flashy, high-tech components on motorcycles, tires can seem considerably low-tech and uninspiring. They’re round, made of some sort of rubber compound, and have some knobs or grooves on their surface. But when you take into account that literally everything is riding on those two tiny terra firma contact patches, it highlights just how important our tires are to our ride.
The tires on a dual sport motorcycle may just have the toughest job of all—keeping the bike safely connected to the ground, whether it’s paved or not. There’s no one tire that can excel at both high-speed pavement rides and gnarly, multi-surface off-road trips, so it’s important to determine what tire works best for the riding you do.
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Why Upgrade Your Tires?
When developing a motorcycle, manufacturers need to make some concessions with the components they choose or else the cost of the bike will soar too high for most buyers. With tires there are plenty of options, but a manufacturer may choose to sell a bike with tires that suit a budget, without necessarily being the best-performing donut for the bike. While there are several things to know about dual sport motorcycles that affect performance, the manufacturer also needs to make a judgement call that will skew toward prioritizing a more on-road- versus off-road-capable tire that may or may not correspond with your riding desires.
Where Are You Riding?
Upgrading the tires on your bike requires an honest assessment of what type of riding you plan to do with your ADV or dual sport. For riders looking to spend most of the time on the pavement with occasional gravel or dirt road off-shoots, a tire aimed primarily at on-road riding makes sense. Conversely, if you’re well off the beaten path most of the time, a more off-road oriented set of rubber is the smarter choice.
Dual Sport Tire Types
Tires meant for dual sport or adventure bikes are often identified by a ratio. A 50:50 tire is marketed toward those looking to split their time on-road and off-road fairly equally. A 70:30 tire is aimed at more on-road riding, while an 80:20 is meant primarily for pavement riding. While an 80:20 tire may look like a typical street bike tire, it is made to take more off-road abuse than a strictly on-road touring or sport tire.
Tire Characteristics
An easy way to distinguish between a tire intended for road versus dirt use is the amount of tread block to void you can see. A road-oriented tire will have a fairly solid surface with grooves carved in for water evacuation. The more off-road-oriented a tire, the larger the grooves or voids become, eventually becoming the knobby, blocky tires associated with dirt bikes.
Knobbier tires offer more opportunity for the tread to claw at loose surfaces, enabling more grip on gravel, sand, mud, or rocks. The downside is that on pavement, the voids between the blocks mean there is less rubber actually meeting the road, plus the tread blocks can move around giving less stability particularly at higher speeds.
Street-oriented tires with their smoother surfaces and much smaller voids have a reduced ability to grip loose surfaces and expel mud or water from the tread, making them more challenging off-road.
Tires are also constructed differently, giving different results. Most street-oriented tires are radial in design which allows for greater on-pavement grip when cornering, but typically have thinner sidewalls that can be more susceptible to punctures from sharp rocks out on the trail.
The most aggressive off-road tires are usually bias-ply tires that feature a stiffer construction. While more durable, they can also be heavy, and although typically mixing a bias-ply and radial tire can lead to instability at high speeds, for dual sports that’s exactly how some bikes (like the Honda Africa Twin) are spec’ed from the factory.
The hardness or softness of the tire’s rubber compound will also affect its performance and longevity. A softer compound will grip the pavement well, but may chunk or chip away when ridden on rough surfaces making them wear out much quicker than a harder compound would.
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Why Tire Size Matters
Changing the size of the tires can offer some benefit, however it requires careful consideration. Swapping to a narrower tire that still fits the stock wheel size will elongate the contact patch, actually increasing its size. This can improve traction on loose surfaces, but may reduce cornering grip on pavement. Plus, deviating from the manufacturer’s recommended tire size can also affect tire load and speed ratings, requiring different inflation pressure than the OEM size. Changing tire size should always be done with careful consideration of these factors and the understanding that it could affect the bike’s handling. That’s exactly why tire care is listed among the causes behind the most common motorcycle mechanic problems you’ll want to understand as an owner.
Jeff Wilson
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