Let me down easy...off road tire suggestions.

Has anyone put any dual sport tires on their XJ?

I've been doing a whole helluva lot of riding off road these days, and although the common sense thing to do would be to pick up a used KLR650 for $1500 bucks, I'm not going to do that. You see, I'm having to much fun on the Seca. Going 55 down a gravel road on Dunlop D404s is not the safest thing to do, however. Theres about a million gravel roads around here, and over the past few weekends I've been going with my v-strom riding buddies on some 40+ mile dirt loops, on one occasion making a misinformed decision to cross a (somewhat) dry lakebed. It was an absolute blast. And suprisingly my XJ did better than the v-stroms.

My question: Has anyone tried putting knobbies on their XJ? What brand? How's they fair? It seems my only option would be to mix brands, as there aren't many dual sport tires which come in a 100/90-19 front and a 120/90-18 or 130/90(80)-18 rear.

Thanks in advance, everybody.

 

http://www.twistedthrottle.com/brand/me ... ameter=371

What do you think?

Also, as far as knobbies are concerned, what should I be thinking about as far as 130/90-18s and the width concerns? Maybe stick with stock to avoid swingarm issues?

 

The lakebed:


The ride up:


What we rode across:

 

That looks like lots of fun! i would probably stick with stock sized tires, i would think even a small amount of knobbiness would make a big difference off road

 

i'd throw your front fender back on too :O

 

http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... +dirt.html

 

That thread is awesome! Yeah the fender was removed because the PO had dented it beyond what bonds could repair. My forks have progressive springs and just about 5cc of extra fluid, so they're a bit hard for off road. I think I'm going to drop the level back to stock and see if it bottoms out.

Everyone mentioned the XJ being too heavy in the front to be off road capable, but that hasn't really been an issue. If you tit farther back, it will go through anything-including foot deep powdered silt and up some pretty serious gravelly inclines.

No skid plate needed when you have exhaust pipes like the xj...never used them anyway.

 

You must have some seriously heavy nipples for THAT to make a difference! 8O :lol: I hope that's a typo for either sit or tilt else I'm in trouble! Anyway what I was going to say is, I think the fork oil grade will make more of a difference to off road damping than 5cc of level since stock damping tends to be soft at slow suspension travel speeds but hard at higher speeds so maybe a lighter oil would help?

 

I would stick to stock width, or maybe even a bit more narrow because knobbies have a part of their thread on both sides of the tires.

This said, I have an XS650 that I'd like to equipped with these Mefo tires

 

It had to happen....

 

Uh, er...SIT farther back, ha. Yeah, a glaring omission is I went 5cc over with 20 weight fork oil. From checking out dirt bike specs, it seems 5w is most commonly used. There goes my road handling. Maybe 10W will be a good compromise, and the progressives should continue to help.

 

I used to quite regularly travel at 60-70 mph down gravel roads on my XJ550 on road tyres, technique will help more than tyres

I just ignored what the back of the bike did and kept the front pointing where I wanted to go, worked for me anyway

 

Keeping your head up & looking further into the distance than you naturally would helps too, it's very easy to let your gaze drop & then you end up correcting too late & overcorrecting your course. Remember to stay relaxed and the bike tends to just go where you look with very little conscious input apart from throttle & gears.

 

are you standing on the pegs while your doing all this blasting around?

 

Sometimes, but not on long gravel road stints. The XJ had a huge advantage over off road motorcycles. The lower center of gravity makes it feel way less sketchy than some of the taller touring brethren. My previous bike was a KLR650, and I always had issues in the more technical off-roading. The seat height makes all of the difference. I have flat feet and bent knees on the XJ, On the KLR I had to lean the bike halfway over to to that.

 

I'll be fitting Heidenau K60 Scouts to my soft-road Seca when I finish a whole bunch of other work it needs....

They're available in stock sizes. Can't give you any feedback yet tho...

 

Not yet, but I'll be ordering them in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep everyone updated!

 

Haven't tried them but I really like the look of those Avon Distazias
Hope I can get some to fit my Seca

 

Just wanted to sign up to this thread as I'm planning on doing the same thing. I was looking at these a while back but I'm not sure of the size works now.

http://www.revzilla.com/product/con...product&kwd=&gclid=CJXz272zpb4CFedFMgodaEwA5Q

Also - silly question I have about front fender clearance - would this be an issue?

 

This thread is 2 years old so you may not get an answer from them

 

oh crap