Being that its hunting season and I'd just as soon stay in one piece I threw some street tires on the KLX to save my AC-10's while I'm slabbing it. I went with Cheng Shin Barracuda's in 3.00-21 and 120-90-18 as they came pretty highly recommended on ADVrider.com. They are also sold as a sportsman class supermoto tire. They are actually a tubeless tire but I was informed that they are fine to run with tubes as well. First impressions are that the tires are a really sticky compound. Rolling them across the garage they picked up dirt like a roll of double sided tape!

As far as mounting them the front tire slipped on pretty easy, much easier than the knobbies I've done so far. Seating the bead took a bit higher pressure than usual though, ~45 psi to get it all the way up. The rear tire was pretty difficult to spoon on, about as tough as a 4 ply Trakmaster I'd say. Seating the bead however took a liberal application of Windex and somewhere between 60 and 85 psi in order for it to rise up fully.

After this battle getting them mounted, I noticed that I didn't line up the "magic" light spot on the tires with the valve stems, oh well not going to monkey with it now. My last 4 tires didn't have a light spot and I didn't have a problem, here's hoping for a repeat performance.

Being that its 10 pm and raining I don't have a performance report as of yet however I can tell you they stick like crazy on the cement. With ***** I could just slide the bike around to turn it around, not so with these. I had to pick it up and pivot around. Also these have extremely low rolling resitance at 25 front and 30 psi rear (recommended pressures from a DRZ rider). I sat on the bike and started rolling from a slight dip in the concrete. I lightly pushed off and coasted almost all the way through the garage, ~20 feet.

If the temps are favorable in the morning I'll be riding to work and I'll get back tomorrow evening with a road test report, for now I'll leave you with some pics.



I kept the Kenda's because I'm thinking about throwing some sheet metal screws in the outer ***** and throwing them on a spare set of wheels to play around in the snow. Come spring time the AC-10's will go on the spare wheels. The AC-10's have 800 miles on them in this picture.

 

hey josh.... another quality post.. how much for the street tires??

 

$130 after tax at the local shop, can get them for $100 online if you don't mind waiting a week to get them. Cheapest place I found was www.americanmototire.com but I like the next day service of the local parts place

 

thanks.... i'm really interested to hear about how well they perform. i've wanted to do this all summer but never got to it.

 

Wait a minute, winter is coming on and you put on smooth road tires? Am I missing something? Oh there's something missing alright. But seriously what's the dealio?

 

It is hunting season deej. Maybe the man wants to stay outa the woods?

 

I've got those on my '83 Honda CX650C street bike. I've got 2100 miles on the with no troubles whatsoever. Its a good tire.

 

I had a frustrating ride to work, the tires however didn't play into it. 39 degrees and foggy led to two incidences of carb icing. Bad enough that it stalled on the second occasion. I had to sit on the side of the road idling for ~5 minutes before I could apply any throttle without killing it.

Anyway, these tires are excellent! I thought the majority of my noise before was the exhaust, turns out it was road noise from the knobbies. It was actually a pleasant noise level riding in today with no earplugs. They go exactly where you point them at all speeds, there is no wandering like with a knobby when you are going slow and the ***** flex. One thing to note though is, once you initiate a turn, you can't just shift your weight and straighten out the bike, you have to work the bars, these tires stick! With the AC-10's I could initiate a turn with countersteering and then lean out to straighten up when exiting. Not so with these, you still use your weight transfer to maneuver but you use more bar input than with the *****.

These tires have really really low rolling resistance like I stated in my first post. They roll right along and the bike was just barely working to maintain 65mph indicated. It also pulled better off the line.

It's supposed to be around 60 degrees on my way home, I'll take the scenic route and see if I can find any flaws with these tires.

 

Hey Josh I had that happen a few times, and its funny, its not necessarily the temp and it is the moisture being pulled in. I have rode in 20 degree weather and its been fine, but throw some fog in the mix and you got trouble. Next time it happens just pull to the side, shut the bike off for 30 seconds and start it up, it should be fine. I would love to get the carb heater that you plumb a small water line and it keeps the carb warm. Anyone know what that might be?

 

Tremor had his up for sale on here when he switched to the pumper carb. I don't recall what the plumbing looked like though.

More than doubled my commute home, ~40 miles in all. These tires are awesome on the pavement! Cracks in the road and tar "snakes" don't phase them, nor do steal deck bridges. You can brake very hard and they don't make the slightest indication of starting to scuff. Very confidence inspiring laying it over in the turns. I hit a max of 80mph on the way home (main jet might be a tad rich, I've had 95 out of it previously) and they are buttery smooth. If you weave, there is no residual head shake like with knobbies, even a quick side to side swerve.

It will take some time to get used to the slow speed handling though. Under 15 mph or so the steering feels quite stiff, if you've ridden a heavy-ish streetbike before it feels like that, except you can still change course unlike a 650lb road monster.

In hardpack dirt they grip harder than the AC-10's, I actually pulled a throttle only wheelie coming up the driveway. Gravel they break free pretty easy. There is actually more traction available in the grass than I expected. It will break loose at the top of first, or with a slip of the clutch. It's fun sliding around the yard without tearing it up

I'd say that these could be ridden on gravel and dirt roads so long as there wasn't much in the way of mud or deep sand. Wet sand they aren't bad, I played in what used to be our garden and they do hook up, which I thought was pretty surprising. I wouldn't take them over a knobby but should you want to venture off the pavement to explore a road or something its feasible.