Help deciding on Mt21 vs MT16 front

So the long and short of it is I ordered a MT21 front for my WR250R from my local shop and they made a mistake and put a MT16 on the bike. I'm running the MT43 rear. When I picked up the bike and realized the mistake the guy apologized and offered to order a new MT21 and swap it out but said he thought this 16 was a much better tire for the local northeast woods riding I have been doing. So now I'm not sure if I should have him swap it or keep the 16 on there. I am pretty new to DS and am coming off the stock trail wings. I went for the MT 21/43 setup after a lot of online reading basically. I'm primarily interested in the bike for off-road trail riding but that said it get about half its miles on twisty back roads linking trails together. Thanks in advance for any advice!

The MT-16 is a typical off-road knobby tire, an old-school one that looks like all knobby tires once did.
Even though the front MT-16 is DOT-approved, it's not a tire that's intended for lots of road use, in my opinion.
What it is meant for is off-road riding, and you can tell just by looking at it.
Any off-road knobby I've used on the street didn't last too long before performance degraded due to wear.

The MT-21 is much more road-worthy, which also means it trades-off some of it's off-road-worthiness to get that.
This tire, to me, looks like a typical 50/50 tire for a mixture of both road and off-road use.
However, it is still more off-road-worthy than the stock Trailwings which are more biased toward street riding.

So, ask the guy in the mirror where he'll be using the bike.
For me, if I were just casually putting along down the road to get to the next trail, the MT-16 would be the one.
If I took the street riding part more seriously and actually wanted to ride in a sporting manner on the street, I'd use the MT-21.

Also, if I were more serious about the street riding, I'd balance both wheels after tire installation.

I know a few guys who run the mt16 front tire.

It works fine on the road but wont last as long as a mt21, thats its only downfall.

Every time your in the woods you'll love that tire, it works better than most every other front tire on wet rocks and roots.

Thanks guys for your replies, they are both very helpfu. Maybe the thing to do is just go with it for now since it's already mounted. I am less worried about wear than I am about losing the front wheel in a corner on the pavement. Sounds like if I just take it easy and ride it gently in the paved corners I should be ok. Good point about getting them balanced. Didn't feel balanced riding it home, I need to ask about that. I guess I would have thought that's part of what I'm getting when I lay someone to mount new rubber but maybe not.
Thanks again.

I found most knobbie front tires to work fine on dry pavement, I ride slightly above the speed limit on the rd when its dry with my washaugal front and motoz rear tire without issue, these tires are as aggressive as any non dot tire.

Now wet pavement is a different story, I've slid through a cross walk before as it locked up way too easy while trying to stop, theres not much grip on wet pavement.

Not sure where you are living but Insurance would be one thing to keep in mind.

If you are involved in a wreck while riding on the street and your Insurance company finds out that you had a non-DOT tire on the bike they may back away from paying any claims.

This is the only reason I run DOT knobbies on my DS rides.

rsteiger wrote:

Not sure where you are living but Insurance would be one thing to keep in mind.

If you are involved in a wreck while riding on the street and your Insurance company finds out that you had a non-DOT tire on the bike they may back away from paying any claims.

This is the only reason I run DOT knobbies on my DS rides.

The MT-16 front tires are DOT-approved (as mentioned in the 2nd post.)

rsteiger wrote:

Not sure where you are living but Insurance would be one thing to keep in mind.

If you are involved in a wreck while riding on the street and your Insurance company finds out that you had a non-DOT tire on the bike they may back away from paying any claims.

This is the only reason I run DOT knobbies on my DS rides.

The tires I run are dot, in my post I said they are as aggressive as any non dot tire.

Theres lots of very aggressive dot tires to pick from, theres no need to run non dot tires.
Every kenda and pirelli front tire is dot but only some of the rears are.

I have the MT-21 on my bike ,but since installing I hear a annoying ticking noise when riding on paved roads is this normal? Especially with speeds over 50 mph.

Iceburg7 wrote:

I have the MT-21 on my bike ,but since installing I hear a annoying ticking noise when riding on paved roads is this normal? Especially with speeds over 50 mph.

I don't hear anything like that on my MT-21 tires at any speed.

Perhaps a small rock between two of the knobs?