terryth
Husqvarna
B Class
ride report on the front D803 and MT43 rear trials tires
I just finished up 2 and 1/2 days riding with the tire combo over new years day. 1 and 1/2 days of single track in the AR Brock Creek riding area, both in the established riding areas and new trails in 25 square miles that the FS gave to the local club to develop single track in, some awesome stuff in there. The other day was spent doing a 190 mile dual sport ride to get an Oark Cafe burger, mostly FS roads and some ATV two track. 60 miles of it was in the dark with the sucky stock TE250 headlight that died all just before it got totally dark. I rode using the lights of the other bikes in our group.
The taller rear tire dropped my 50 mph cruise rpm by 700. The rear is definately a keeper. I ran 7.5 psi the entire time and the traction was good every where and it helped bigtime with uphills. Traction downhills was good also if you didn't lock it up, then it felt like I had a rear brake problem. It felt and held up fine on pavement and dirt roads at speeds up to 60 mph.
I'm not so sure about the front. The front was either amazing or putting me on the ground. On anything solid like rocks and dirt, the braking traction was amazing and even put me over the bars on one steep downhill single track section. It also felt really good while riding standing and putting a little more weight on the front end. Getting the front light when powering out of turns, directional control suffered compared to a knobby. On loose stuff like the mud into and out the occasional mud holes and wet spots on the trail it was like hitting a patch of ice. Piles of pine needles were also kind of slippery. Leaves on the trail were not noticibly worse than normal. It had good traction in the streams on wet rocks. On dirt roads (not loose gravel) and pavement it worked pretty well also once you got used to the different feel of it when leaning in the turns, even at higher speeds. The wet sections on the dirt roads with some mud were scary with the lack of directional control.
Overall, the plushness was nice and it was decent as long as you didn't hit any loose stuff and went slow, but I wouldn't trust it pushing hard at higher speeds on the trail. The 803 is coming off. I am going to give the MT43 front a try to see if its any better in the loose stuff (taller and differently shaped knobs) and to see if it retains some of the trials tire advantages while being less of a compromise than the 803 was (really good in some areas and really bad in others), kind of like the MT43 rear being still decent off-road but far less compromised than the radial trials competition tires on pavement and higher speeds.
I just finished up 2 and 1/2 days riding with the tire combo over new years day. 1 and 1/2 days of single track in the AR Brock Creek riding area, both in the established riding areas and new trails in 25 square miles that the FS gave to the local club to develop single track in, some awesome stuff in there. The other day was spent doing a 190 mile dual sport ride to get an Oark Cafe burger, mostly FS roads and some ATV two track. 60 miles of it was in the dark with the sucky stock TE250 headlight that died all just before it got totally dark. I rode using the lights of the other bikes in our group.
The taller rear tire dropped my 50 mph cruise rpm by 700. The rear is definately a keeper. I ran 7.5 psi the entire time and the traction was good every where and it helped bigtime with uphills. Traction downhills was good also if you didn't lock it up, then it felt like I had a rear brake problem. It felt and held up fine on pavement and dirt roads at speeds up to 60 mph.
I'm not so sure about the front. The front was either amazing or putting me on the ground. On anything solid like rocks and dirt, the braking traction was amazing and even put me over the bars on one steep downhill single track section. It also felt really good while riding standing and putting a little more weight on the front end. Getting the front light when powering out of turns, directional control suffered compared to a knobby. On loose stuff like the mud into and out the occasional mud holes and wet spots on the trail it was like hitting a patch of ice. Piles of pine needles were also kind of slippery. Leaves on the trail were not noticibly worse than normal. It had good traction in the streams on wet rocks. On dirt roads (not loose gravel) and pavement it worked pretty well also once you got used to the different feel of it when leaning in the turns, even at higher speeds. The wet sections on the dirt roads with some mud were scary with the lack of directional control.
Overall, the plushness was nice and it was decent as long as you didn't hit any loose stuff and went slow, but I wouldn't trust it pushing hard at higher speeds on the trail. The 803 is coming off. I am going to give the MT43 front a try to see if its any better in the loose stuff (taller and differently shaped knobs) and to see if it retains some of the trials tire advantages while being less of a compromise than the 803 was (really good in some areas and really bad in others), kind of like the MT43 rear being still decent off-road but far less compromised than the radial trials competition tires on pavement and higher speeds.
