At the end of every year I organise a 5 day ride in the East Australian High Country for my group of 17 desperados. This year I will have my TE511 and I can not wait to tackle the hill climbs. Check out this short video of what we got up to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3WgfNPnbbM We are going again but earlier this year on the 4th August.
Looks like quite a big get together and ride plus someone was capturing some very good video ... 17 riders is large group to keep in line also
Nice vid, glad i watched it past the half way point cuz i was thinking wow, these guys can't ride Funny how cameras make everything look so EZ. Great vid, looks like a fun crowd.
Yeah I know what you mean about video footage making it all look so benign and easy to the viewer. The first half of the video was meant to be bloopers and silly situations for a bit of a laugh. Believe it or not, we as a group drive 900 Kms every year to go to this place and have been doing so for 8 years and I can assure everybody that it is a tough gig to ride. We travel there also because one of our riders liked the town so much (and the lifestyle I guess) that he bought a local business and settled his young family there 6 years ago. Since then we have had the ultimate luxury of being guided around the tracks with his local mates who he rides with. We ride aproximately 200 + Kms per day for 5 days. We are shagged at the end but very very satisfied. This year we have 20 riders going from Adelaide SA plus the 3 locals and I had to turn other people away as the logistics have just become too big to handle. Anyway the TE511 with appropriate hard terrain tires and my personal set-up should eat this place. The anticipation this year is killing me as I am expecting great things from my TE511 with more power, better suspension and CTS. Should be much better than my 2009 TE450, and that was good ! I will put up a report on this years trip with my experiences with the new bike.
No one in my group has tried trials tires, ever. The ususl fear of the unknown I guess. But I have some questions for you if you do not mind because I have noticed that outside Australia they appear quite often in posts on Cafe Husky and I must admit to being a bit curious. Will they make the distance of 900-1000kms over hard rocky terrain ? How well do they perform on traverse slopes where we are trying to stay out of deep water erosion ruts up steep hills that seemingly wants to swallow your bike ? The trials style tire does not appear to have much on the sides of the tire where we have found that we need grip ? How well do they grip in the wet should it start raining ? Puncture resistance ? What tire pressures ? Which brand and size is the trials tire of choice ? Your experiences would be appreciated.
Sam, they grip well in in everything but snow and wet clay. I have a Bridgstone Ultra Heavy Duty tube and have never had a flat tire. Im told I run 6-8 pressure. Its a Micheline tire, apparently the best? They are soft like an eraser on a pencil. The everyone in our group (other than my boyfriend) run them. They get an entire season out of one tire!
I've never ran a true trials tire but have run a K270 Kenda dual-sport ... It is not a knobby and not as soft as a trials (but close in its pattern) but it blows a knobby away in rocks, water, roots, wet roots, wet rocks , and just as good or better in hard packed stuff ... after running something other than knobby, you'll see how bad a knobby performs in anything but mud or loam or perfect dirt ... These tires will not dig a hole out from under you also if you get stuck on a an uphill and have to start from a dead stop ... That knobby spins 2 turns and you have dug a hole and you are now stuck in it ..
Great video,that looked to be the perfect trip. I don't think you would gain anything with a trials tyre in that terrain.That said though,there are some advatages to running a trials tyre.I had to fit a trials tyre out of necessity when a AC10 enduro tyre decided to leave the rim.They are nice and sticky and perform a lot better over hard surfaces, rocks, logs, roots etc especialy in wet conditions. There's a steep climb over a solid rock surface on a trail we use. It's not one of my favorites, you need to attack it with plenty of speed at the bottom and use your momentum to carry you up.There's a turn near the top and you have to loose a bit of speed here.This is where you loose traction and it's a tricky last couple of yards using the feet,and my success rate is about 50/50. Now on this trip with the emerengy trials tire fitted the the husky flew up.No loss of traction on the slow turn.I even rode it down and back up, feet up on the turn. In my experience though, you loose out considerably when travelling at speed on loose surfaces and they are useless in boggy conditions. I can see the advantages on the slow technical stuff, but on an enduro bike the advantages are outwieghed by the disadvantages.
Nice Photo Pablo. The General Rule I have stuck to over the years is : Intermediates if really wet but hard terrains all other times, which is most of the time. Tires that have proven themselves to me (in no order) for general cross country work are : FRONTS Pirelli MX Extra Bridgestones ED663 Bridgestone 604 Michelin M12 XC Michelin Enduro MS REAR Pirelli MX Extra Bridgestone 404 Bridgestone 604 Dunlop 952 Dunlop 756 With so many great tires I am not inclined to try Motoz, Mefo, Duro, Shinko, Mitas, Trelleborg, or other similar non mainsteam brands. However, I have been rather curious about trials tires. I should try one on the rear one day just so I know once and for all.
I think I might try one just for the hell of it. I love the vid and riding in the high country is soo much fun Kel
