Open Iris

Posted by chris at 10:27 AM
June 24, 2003
Maxxis 6006 Tire Review
In the never ending search for the ideal tire, I have considered many. Maxxis has made the 6006 tire for some time now, but never in a 140/80 18 specified for the KTM Adventure R rear. One look at a picture, and you see it fits somewhere in-between the mostly dirt tires like the Pirelli MT-21 and the Metzeler Karoo, and mostly street tires, such as the Matzeler Sahara 3. I started talking about this size with Maxxis' marketing rep last year. He told me that they were planning on producing the larger size. Since I was eager to try them, I of course offered my services to test them out.

A few weeks ago, they took me up on my "offer" and sent me a set, saying "Tell me what you think". I must have been one of the first to get a set, as I got them only a week or so after the rep told me they came over on the boat from overeas. Since I knew they were coming for a few weeks, I decided to put them to the test in the Gatineau Dual Sport ride, and mounted them a few days before. They went on with about the same amount of effort - I am no great tire changer- as others. The tires they were replacing were Metzeler Karoos, which as I have previously commented, are very capable tires, but they just wear out too damm fast!

I had almost 200 miles on the tires when I started out on the trip, all of it highway, and I had another 440 miles to go before I could see how they faired in the dirt. As it turned out, those 440 miles were for the most part wet and miserable. HA! Test # 1 completed, and they worked very well in the rain. Mind you, I was not pushing them like they were sport tires, but I felt that the grip in the numerous twists and turns on the way up showed that they can handle the rain. Noise was not unlike other similar tires, I wear earplugs religiously, so noisy tires are not my biggest concern

On to the dirt. This ride was a dual sportin' tire tester's dream. We did fast dirt farm roads. We did sand. We did mud. We did rocks. And we did everything in-between. So how did they fair? Well I was concerned right off of the bat as the front end was considerably more squirrelly then the Karoo (after you wear in the Karoo, new ones can be bad too) At lunch time I started thinking, ok, run a Karoo up front and the Maxxis in the back. Then someone asked me what tire pressure I had up front. Duh! It was at least 25 psi, maybe more. So I dropped it to around 19-20psi, and whala! No more front end shake.

So now, as a package, the tires were performing very well. We went through some great sandy loom sections, and I felt like I had a set of true knobbies on. granted it had rained the day before, but the rear hooked up almost as well as a new Karoo. The thing is, I could never have had a Karoo with this much tread showing after riding 650 miles on pavement and then 100 miles on dirt!

Mud was up next, and I was a bit worried that I would be reliving some great mudhole front end slides on the stock Sahara 3 tires. I did the smart thing, and slowed down when hitting mud, but in a particular deep no-way-but-though-the-stuff fifty-foot section, all was well.

On Sunday, I got to ride more of the same. Ther was one section where I was following Bryan Flannigan around some great twisties. I can only assume he was familiar with them, because I think he forgot that he was on his adventure and not his last sport bike. I was able to pretend I was a sport bike rider for a bit, and the tires did not give up my charade.

We all know that the faster you go, the hotter the tire gets, and the quicker they wear. It also holds true that the lower the air pressure, the hotter the tire gets. Three quarters of the way home, I noticed that I had not put some of that air I removed back in. I am sure this affected tire wear adversely, but, when I got home, I estimate that I had used 50% of the useable tread. Since that was done in 1450 miles, 300 of which was offroad, I think we have a winner. Throw in the fact that they are cheaper then the Metzlers or Continentals, and you are looking at a sweet new offering for the KTM.

Posted by Chris Witzgall at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I participated in my first GPS guided dual sport ride this weekend. Actually, it was my first organized dual sport ride period! Gatineau is located across the river from Ottawa, and, as I found out the gateway to some of the most incredible dual sport riding in eastern North America.

Kawasaki puts on a series of dual sport events on Canada. I figured that riding up and back from Groton to do one of these rides would make for a great trip, and provide good rally preparation When I asked Bryan "Flanny" Flannigan, the owner of Earth, Water and Snow, an adventure company in Chelsea, Quebec, which ride I should pick, he of course suggested one that he designed. I am glad that I followed his suggestion,as it was an amazing trip!

I also was fortunate enough to get a new set of tires, the Maxxis 6006, from the manufacturer to try out. You can read more about the tire in it’s own entry here, but if you don’t bother, know this, I am glad that Maxxis decided to make the tire in the Size for the KTM Adventure R, and it is a welcome addition to the tire choices for the KTM!

So last Friday, under the threat of rain, I set off for Gatineau. The plan was to make it to the hotel, check in, and then ride over to Centre Sports Motorisés, the Kawasaki dealer hosting the ride, in the early evening. I left Groton just after 7:00am, and started taking a back roads route that would take me through some great riding in Hew Hampshire, Vermont, New York and ultimately Canada.

The weather did not cooperate. It rained off and on throughout the morning, but not too hard. While waiting for at the Vermont crossing of the ferry to New York, across Lake Champlain, it started to rain in earnest. And rain it did, not stopping the entire evening. This slowed me down considerably. Water got in everywhere, including my routebook holder, through a few tiny screw holes that I had neglected to tape up. The only thing left dry were my feet, Traffic slowed down, and I did not make it to Gatineau until seven at night. By that time, I needed to ride right to the dealership, so I could get the GPS routes loaded up to my GPS.

There I was greeted by Bryan, his wife Isabelle, and the crew from Rally Connex, who also sponsor the event series. These are the guys to go to if you ever want to enter the Paris-Dakar, the Baha 1000, or similar big ticket rallies. They can arrange for all of your logistics. It was nice to see them humbling themselves to cater to a bunch of dual sport enthusiasts!

The next day the rain had tapered off to a dull sprinkle, and I showed up back at the dealership for the 9:00am start. Twenty-eight riders in total, plus sweep on bike and truck, rounded out the group. Centre Sports Motorisés ponied up some great door prizes, and everyone go something.

Back to the ride. Each rider with a gps was given five routes, and two “easy” escape routes. Some riders did not have gps units, and so they joined up with others that did. Since Brian was not riding, but driving the sweep truck, he let a friend of his ride the bike in his stead. So there were two guys named Chris riding KTM Advertures. We set off, and were shortly off of the pavement, and onto the dirt. Shortly into the ride, we thought that we had made a mistake, as the gps route was veering off of our track. Shortly we realized that although the track and route might not follow each other exactly, they would converge at each waypoint, and Brian did a great job of making sure every intersection of question was marked with a waypoint. I also found that if you changed the GPS to show “track up” instead of “North up” as I usually use, made it very easy to follow the route without stopping at each waypoint. If the gps showed a right hand turn, you looked up, and there it was, a right hand turn. Simple as that.

I had not ridden any decent length of higher speed dirt since last summer. I was also getting used to the new tires (there had aver 500 miles on them by this point, but all pavement) so it took a little bit of time for me to get back in the swing. Soon enough, though, we were moving quickly though the twists and turns the of the route. It made for some great riding, as the first section was lots of exiting one turn, and setting up for the next, one after another. A local rider on a KLR, Steve, joined with us soon after the start, and as Chris and I picked up the pace, he did a great job of keeping up on the relatively slower bike, only falling behind when we would open things up a pit on the straighter sections.We saw some great scenery, the French-Canadian countryside is an interesting contrast to the rural Vermont and New Hampshire I ride in regularly.

When we stopped for lunch, Steve told us that he had not ridden like this for 20 years, and had just bought the bike 2 weeks ago. So much for the break-in period! Chris also told me that he grew up riding in the Edmonton area, dirt and street. Right now he has a sport bike, but he obviously had not forgotten much about riding in the dirt, but he did not lose much of the sport riding “drive”, as he showed me how a good rider can really make the KTM move on and of the pavement.

We had covered about 120 miles in the long morning, with about the same distance for the afternoon. This section included the Papineau Labelle Reserve, with a super mix of more technical logging roads. The rain the day before kept the dust down, and made for a great grippy surface, in may parts, and some deep sand in others. We spent some time riding with Predi Medina and his wife Najua, both accomplished riders. I spent some time following Predi; following his line was great learning for me. Every time we stopped, he had the biggest grin on his face as he would give me the thumbs up sign. I do not think I have seen his enthusiasm for riding matched by any other.

Right before exiting the forest, we helped a fellow rider fix a flat tire, getting eaten by the bugs in the process! Too soon the route deposited us back at the dealership. It was a long day, and I could feel the miles! The route that Brian had laid out was amazing. Many of the riders came from Montreal, and other points outside of the area, and I don’t think anyone was disappointed.

Sunday, I was treated to an afternoon ride with Bryan. We checked out some more technical trails, as well as some more beautiful scenery. Brian offers guided dual sport rides, at very reasonable rates. I am going to try and get a group together from this area to make it up there again before winter settles in, and I would not hesitate to suggest this service to others!

The following day, I said goodbye, and rode home, this time in much nicer weather than the ride up. I took roughly the same route to the New York-Vermont boarder, but then I departed and ended up riding down Rt. 4 and 30 in Vermont, going through Brattleboro to make my way back to Groton. A great four days of riding!

Posted by chris at 11:08 PM

Posted by Chris Witzgall at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think tht we hae the bike sorted out now. It was starvng for air! A combination of durty air filter from all of the dirt, plus the stap from my satlebag had shifted over part of he air inet, making for a stared bike at hghway speeds. My TSD rallying I no going so well. I cannt seem to get a proper factor int the computer. They guys who are doing better are running an enduro computer a bit like the one I used last tie, but with some improvements. They are using a whell sensor. I am finding that my mileages are way off, so that when I think I am on time, I am usually late, but not always. I am also having trouble using the cmputer white riding. Wearing gloves, bouncing arund on unpaved roads, while trying to press the right key, only once, is proving to be very hard. So I am trying to do less adjustments, which mean that I am innacurate, but It is better then hitting the wrng key and really screwing things up, which I have done several times. Ah, well, such is rallying!

Posted by Chris Witzgall at 12:11 AM | Permalink