Thinking about buying a set of these, given they're only $80 ish for both. Wondering if the speedo is affected at all? also is the ride height changed? Wife likes to ride this bike and she only ever rides street.

My other alternative is stick with street and throw a 140/70/17 IRC on the back.

Street tires have been fine for the most part, on the hard packed gravel trails, i've taken the bike on, but never ventured into the sugar sand trails that the ATV's go into. Do you reckon the Shinko's can get thru sugar sand ?

Also if anyone has any decent pics of the 250sf with the 244 shinko's please post them.

Thanks

 

Personally don't like the tread, I ran a set when they were still part of Yokohama, but in 17s you don't have a wide choice.

All you need to do is measure the diameter of your present tires and match up with one of the 244s or whatever you might want to run. Shinko has the various actual measured dimensions on line at their site. Bridgestone does the same as do most.

Google search the manufacturer then look for the URL that is the company site, not one of the bike parts sales sites. I've perused Shinko, Bridgestone, IRC, Duro, Dunlop, Metzler, and others, looking at the sizes to know what they actually are on a given rim.

My bet is you may like them for the off paved roads and trails, but your wife might prefer something like the 705s if she is mainly pavement with occasional dirt roads.

 

I've got Shinko 244's in 3.0 and 4.6 on my SF and really like them. I've used them almost exclusively on pavement, and they do really well on road for being labeled a 50/50 tire. And of course do really well in the few times I've had them in gravel. No experience with them in sand.

It took me a few miles to get used to the feeling of the knobbies coming from the stock tires, but now that they've worn in a bit, I'm very comfortable with in all situations. They even get used on short interstate connections at 75 MPH occasionally. I'd estimate I've put over 3K commuting miles on them and they seem to be wearing well. I'm guessing the rear has at least another 3K in it, and the front barely has any noticeable wear.

I don't remember dimensions, but the Shinkos seem slightly larger than the stock rubber. I haven't checked on GPS, but the slightly larger size should mean that the Shinkos partially correct the factory speedometer inaccuracy. The low price was another big draw for me, as you mentioned, a set is less than $80.

Pic of mine with the Shinkos and slightly raised suspension:

 

pretty slick snowdrifter...what kind of rack are you sporting on the rear?

 

Something I fabbed up. Planning on making some paniers at some point and wanted a good solid mount. It's not very pretty, but strong and protective. I've downsized the aluminum plate a bit since the photo. "Form follows function."

 

I've run 244s on my 06 F650GS for the last 10k miles and absolutely love these tires. They wear like iron, stick on wet pavement, grip in the dirt/rock and are also run flat(proved it on a 25 mile treck out of the woods). I had them on an 09 WR250X, also. The only thing is these tires will howl. I love the 244s.

nlp