MT 21front Revisited

I ran an MT21on the front of a dirt bike years ago and was less than impressed. I keep seeing positive reviews on them and with a planned CO and AZ BDR planned I decided to give one another try. I'm still not real impressed with the bite off road,  but the sliding was at least predictable. They are fairly quiet on the hwy and after 1000 miles of rocky trail and hwy they have not worn much at all. I did get a rock puncture that took three plugs to repair (tubliss) but I can't say if my regular tire would have prevented that or not. For medium dual sport with much pavement, I have to say they are hard to beat.

Tires.. an interesting topic.

I have been all over the place on tires for my bikes.

For the WRR I have two sets of wheels.

One set I am running Shinko 705's but will be moving to Shinko 244's once those are done. This set of wheels are my 'daily' DS wheels that I use around town and on some local gravel roads.

The other set of wheels are my "DS Adventure" set which I am running Pirelli XCMH tires on. I have been all over the map on these from MT21's, D606's, Trackmaster 2's, MT43's, etc. In the end all of these tires work well and some of them work better than others depending on what you are riding in.

I was having a conversation with a guy I went to HS with many years ago.. we weren't really close friends but we both use to ride dirt bikes back then. He was much better than I and went on to compete in several ISDE's and is still active today. We chatted about tires and what he said really stunned me but made sense. Generally he doesn't chase different tires he runs pretty much the same set over and over and has adjusted his riding style accordingly. In his opinion the toughest thing to over come is constantly changing your riding style due to different tires. He said find a set you like that covers about 80% of what you do and optimize your riding style for that brand/style of tire. He also applies this same logic to how he sets up his bike - find something that works and stick with it.

Once I thought about the success he has had in riding it made a lot of sense to me so I am pretty much sticking to the XCMH tires on my WRR and Beta for when I am planning to do some serious DS riding.

BTW that guy I went to HS with is Jeff Fredette.

I agree with your friend, but I decided to try the M21 for this trip because it was originally going to approach 3k miles & I was not certain my normal MX71 front would last the entire trip.
I used to race flat track, for my play riding the front tire is the most important. I can chase a loose rear, losing the front is often painful..

The other "wrench" in my plan is Dunlop has replaced the MX71 with the MX52, so I am being forced make a change anyway. I tried one MX52 & the carcus just does not seem to be as tough, so I have start testing again ;)

4play wrote:

I agree with your friend, but I decided to try the M21 for this trip because it was originally going to approach 3k miles & I was not certain my normal MX71 front would last the entire trip.
I used to race flat track, for my play riding the front tire is the most important. I can chase a loose rear, losing the front is often painful..

The other "wrench" in my plan is Dunlop has replaced the MX71 with the MX52, so I am being forced make a change anyway. I tried one MX52 & the carcus just does not seem to be as tough, so I have start testing again ;)

You may want to tryout the XCMH or maybe the XCMS. I think only the XCMH is DOT rated but not sure how important that is with the riding you do. If I remember right out there you guys are dealing with more rock and sand than what I typically see in GA so there may be some differences.

My experience with the XCMH is it is more planted than the MT21 and I agree with you on the loose front being the most painful. Another one you may want to try is the Trackmaster 2. I had that on the bike for awhile and it did really well in the muck and loose stuff but would get a bit more squirrely on pavement than the XCMH. This may not be a big issue if you are primarily only doing short legs between the trails and don't ride with a bunch of goofball friends who think they are Rossi on a DS bike.

I like the kenda wahougal front tire best for my mixed riding, it works great on every thing execpt wet pavement be carefull on that.

Its quite similar to the xcmh but much cheaper to buy.

All kenda and pirelli front tires are dot.

The only dunlop tires worth looking at IMO are the at81s for non dot off road riding and the 606 for dual sport use, the mx ones dont last long off road or work any better than longer lasting cheaper tires from other brands. Dunlop advertises the best they dont make the best tires tho.

I have a dozen slightly worn mx51 front tires at my place rght now, I cant give the things away as most guys know they suck and wont even run them if they're free.
I got them when I bought a bunch of race take off tires from a local mx pro for my mx bike this saved me a ton of money on tires, I only wanted the rears but ended up with all the used tires he had.

I don't know anyone who likes the MX51, but the MX71 is a favorite front in AZ