Confused DOT Tires

I come from 20 years of only riding on the road with bike heavy street bikes. I bought a Yamaha yz250 last year and love how those tires stick to the trail. about 2 weeks ago I bought a wr250r and with the stock tires it seems super loose in Sand, mud and loose Gravel. I will only be riding on 2 tracks and single track. I have read some of the tire threads. What is the best DOT tire for Sand, mud and Hard packed ? The Ideal tire would be off my YZ250 but those aren't DOT approved.

Pacman2131 wrote:

I will only be riding on 2 tracks and single track. I have read some of the tire threads. What is the best DOT tire for Sand, mud and Hard packed ?  

Wow.. next you should ask what the best oil to use on the the bike!

You are probably going to get a bunch of different answers on this since people ride their bikes differently.

Right now if I know I am going to be in mud, sand, and hard pack I would be running a Pirelli XCMS front and a Pirelli XCMH rear tire. Be advise that the XCMS front will be a bit skittish on the pavement and the XCMH won't last long if you are doing pavement.

My buddy is running a Pirelli MT16 front and had been running a Dunlop 606 rear but is now switching to a IRC TR8 rear tire on his WRR. This should give you a little bit better performance and life on the street but still work well when things get lose.

Lastly another popular combo is the Pirelli MT21 front and a Dunlop D606 rear. Good street performance but you lose some of the sand/mud performance - my experience has been that has more to do with the front than the rear.

Dang I forgot I had to ask about Oil.

Thanks for the help.

If you aren't riding any pavement, why not just put dirt knobbies on? I've never heard of anybody getting a ticket for dirt tires... Dirt knobbies will wear out or chunk on pavement, and may not have good wet traction, but they won't explode or anything.

dhally wrote:

If you aren't riding any pavement, why not just put dirt knobbies on?  I've never heard of anybody getting a ticket for dirt tires...  Dirt knobbies will wear out or chunk on pavement, and may not have good wet traction, but they won't explode or anything.

Depends on where you live. Lately the town next where I live started handing out tickets on bikes with knobby tires. One guy had a set of MT21's on his bike and had to go to court to get the ticket dropped.

The other issue is insurance related. If you are riding on the street with non DOT tires and should have a wreck your insurance may opt to drop you and not pay any claims.

dhally wrote:

If you aren't riding any pavement, why not just put dirt knobbies on?  I've never heard of anybody getting a ticket for dirt tires...  Dirt knobbies will wear out or chunk on pavement, and may not have good wet traction, but they won't explode or anything.

As a rule non-DOT tires are squirrely on pavement. Unless you trailer to/from the trail and never ride on pavement I wouldn't install them. There are many very good DOT tires that handle both pavement and trail very well. My favorites are Michelin T63 and Kenda Trackmaster II. The former is probably not the right choice if you see a lot of mud but will last longer on pavement.

on the MT21/D606 combo I really like the D606 rear but found the MT21 front lacking in longevity.

-morgan

All kenda and Pirelli front tires are DOT, pick which ever one suits your terrain and your good to go.
I like the kenda washagual and triple, most of the other kenda fronts are only good in certain places, the tm2 isn't good anywhere and I like a few Pirelli's, xcms, extra X, scorpion pro and mt16.

For the rear I like kenda's parker dt and the trackmaster 2, the parker works better everywhere but the tm2 is cheaper, they last about the same.

All the tires listed above are just as good off road as any non dot tire.

I'm a fan of the rear Parker DT on my machine also. I have the Parker DT on the front, but need to get some more time with it in the desert to really test it. It's solid on pavement, seems to hunt a bit in loose gravel. Several of the gravel roads in the foothills near us got a fresh layer of gravel recently, and it's loose. No bike really likes riding on ball bearings, so I want to give the front a fair shake on better dirt terrain. Been too busy to get much riding in this summer, and at 100+ in the evenings, my motivation to get out on the bike has been a little low...

The TR8 front wears really well, the rear would probably do okay if I didn't like to pin the throttle off road all the time and round knobs off. About half life at 800 miles. The front looks like it would have gone 3K. The Trailwings sucked in the desert, the TR8's weren't brilliant, but they were predictable. The front hated sand.

Once I get through this set of tires, I'll probably try a Washougal on the front.

I replaced the Deathwings finally. It was the greatest thing I could have done and I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with the front tire I purchased. I purchased a AC10 for the front. This is the tire I'm on the fence about. I'm still playing around with suspense and Air presser at this point. On the Rear I put the D606 on it and man that is a Great tire seems to grip well. I cant wait to ride a little more. Didn't get a lot of miles this weekend as the Humidity level was so High Saturday morning my goggles just kept fogging up.

I just spooned on some T63's...hope I don't have to do that again any time soon, lol.  Will give a report when I get some time on them.....

Just an update. These T63 are pretty awesome and seem to be wearing pretty good. They are much better than I would have thought on raod and off road they are 100 times better than the stock tires, lol. For 79 bucks you cant go wrong IMO.