TYRES FOR THE GS

[bully1]

Well the time has nearly come to put another sey of tyres on my GS. I,ve decided to put something a bit more agressive on it, however the Heidenaus are not available at the moment so it looks like TKC's will be going on, I got some prices during the week and when I got up off the floor agreed to book it in. Why are the Conti's $100 dearer per set than the Heidenaus ? ( front $275/ rear $340) That makes them a pretty exy set of tyres, what sort of milage are you guys getting out of a pair?

[2volts]

Conti on the front will last forever.
On the back, I only ever got 5000-6000 in mostly agressive off road.
I always liked the Conti more than the Heidi, but the Heidi was only available in the 140/80 then.
Heidi K60 rear is only US$160 in the US. Bend over and take it like a man, Bully!

pete

[bully1]

For your info I ended up with a Continental TKC front and a Mitas E09 rear, very happy with the grip so far, have tried them on sand, gravel and clay, A lot noisier on the bitumen but that is to be expected with the tread pattern.

[spacey1]

Couple of days before leaving on a cross-Oz trip, I had Tyres for Bikes fit a pair of Mitas e10's to my 2008 R1200 GSA. Performance on the Great Central Road was ok. Can't really make any comparisons to any other tyres. I put the e10's on in case I was rained on out in the desert. It didn't rain in the desert

But an hour after I got to the Olgas and the bitumen, down it came, the rain that is. Rained all the way to about 200 kms south of Mataranka. Got to Alice in the rain, Todd River overflowing the causeways, coldest day time temperature on record (6 degrees C), love those heated hand grips.

Got to Darwin and swapped out the rear tyre at Alicross in Winnellie for an Anakie2. That's around 4500 kms. Probably could have made the 964kms back to the 3-Ways, but where does one get a rear tyre there? The bike is fully laden, 3 panniers, tank bag and gear on the rear seat, rear tyre pressure (e10) at 2.8 bar. Richard at Alicross recommended 2.9 bar for the load and high speeds in the NT. The Anakie2 appears to be wearing well to Nambour.

Road performance of the e10 is ok, noisey as one would expect with this type of tyre, especially at 80kph or so. Notably I had no punctures or any other tyre problems. And I did hit many rocks and holes on the Great Central at speed. I experienced massive tank slappers in the soft pea gravel 'tween wheel tracks. Advice from others is that this behavior is fairly normal for a fully laden GSA and I should fit a steering damper to tame the wild oscillations of the front end in the soft. Actually stopping the rear end waving like a flag in the aforementioned conditions would be handy as well.

The front e10 is still ok after the 9500kms to Nambour QLD. I will probably replace it in Sydney for a mate to the rear Anakie2.

[bully1]

I ended up with a Continental TKC 80 on the front and a Mitas E09 Dakar on the rear, so far they seem to be wearing well. Now got about 4000 kms on them, front is perfect and the rear is wearing better than I thought it would.

[spacey1]

Greetings Folks,

Here is a photo of the Mitas e-10 at 1200 km (Perth to Tjukayirla Roadhouse, GCR) and at 4400 km (Perth via GCR to Darwin).

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/mb ... directlink