WR250X with Warp 9 dirt wheels, 50/50 Road Offroad Commuter

Hello,
I have a little dilemma ;)
Last year I got my 08 WR250X, it was my first bike. I wanted something small and easy to handle, and WR is just like that!
After short time, I noticed that I enjoy riding in the woods, and country roads more than asphalt. I got nice set of shinko 705 tires. They are alright but not great.

I was thinking about getting Warp 9 dirt wheels with dunlop 606 tires. Here is my question, what do you think? Is it worth to spend ~ $1k for this wheel/tire set and enjoy driving off-road since I will be riding 50/50 asphalt / off road?
I use this bike for work 5 days per week, it's all asphalt. Only weekends would be for off road stuff.

I know I could switch wheels everythime I wanna off road, but let's be honest, sometimes you just want to hop and ride so I would like to leave only one set all the time.

What are the biggest cons riding off-road tires on asphalt? faster wear? less grip? worse handling? anything else?

ps. selling my WRX and buying WRR is not an option, since there is almost none to chose from where I live ;)

thanks for help

When you ask about off-road tires on asphalt, do you mean real off-road knobby tires intended for off-road only, or some kind of dual-purpose tire meant to compromise between both?

As for real knobby tires, the answer is basically yes - they wear pretty quickly, won't have as much grip on the road if you push it, and, speaking through my own trail riding that also involves some road riding (which I still do to this day), you will pretty much be replacing tires often if you want to keep tires on your bike that do not seem to be always worn out in appearance and performance.
No off-road knobby will last long on the road.

What would I do if I wanted to commute on the street during the week and then ride off-road on the weekends, especially if I were making a habit of it, with a WR-250X?
If I were really bitten by the dirt-riding bug, I'd get the wheels that work the best off-road - 21" front and 18" rear in the proper widths - and fit dual-purpose tires that are biased toward lots of off-road riding.
That means tires that are still approved for street use, but work better off-road than the dual-purpose tires that are biased toward the street.
D606 Dunlops are tires like this.
Myself, I probably would not want to change wheels twice a week either, so the 21" and 18" wheels would remain on the bike.

I would also use a rear sprocket with about 50 teeth to gear the bike for lots of off-road use, which requires a longer chain.
I'd also service the air filter after each weekend, and change the engine oil more often.

YZEtc wrote:

When you ask about off-road tires on asphalt, do you mean real off-road knobby tires intended for off-road only, or some kind of dual-purpose tire meant to compromise between both?

As for real knobby tires, the answer is basically yes - they wear pretty quickly, won't have as much grip on the road if you push it, and, speaking through my own trail riding that also involves some road riding (which I still do to this day), you will pretty much be replacing tires often if you want to keep tires on your bike that do not seem to be always worn out in appearance and performance.
No off-road knobby will last long on the road.

What would I do if I wanted to commute on the street during the week and then ride off-road on the weekends, especially if I were making a habit of it, with a WR-250X?
If I were really bitten by the dirt-riding bug, I'd get the wheels that work the best off-road - 21" front and 18" rear in the proper widths - and fit dual-purpose tires that are biased toward lots of off-road riding.
That means tires that are still approved for street use, but work better off-road than the dual-purpose tires that are biased toward the street.
D606 Dunlops are tires like this.
Myself, I probably would not want to change wheels twice a week either, so the 21" and 18" wheels would remain on the bike.

thanks for the input YZEtc.
Yes, if I ever decide I would get Warp 9 set of 21" front and 18" rear wheels.
as the tires, I was thinking about Dunlop D606 or Michelin T63 ( I have never used any of them, so don't really know which one is better) . Will they compromise on and off road riding 50/50?

Let's say I do 5000 miles per season, would one set of these tires be enought?

A tire like a D606 is still a compromise tire because it's meant for both extremes opposing each other (dirt and pavement).
It won't have the outright grip off-road of an off-road knobby, nor the outright grip on the road of a sportbike tire that your WR-250X came with.
They're still a compromise, but a livable one if you are looking to do what you suppose.

In my experience, 5,000 miles on even dual-purpose tires will have them very worn, unless you baby the bike everywhere (go easy on the throttle intentionally trying to milk milage out of them).
They may or not be bald by then, but they'll be shot if you want good off-road traction.
Probably depends on what your personal definition of "worn out" is, as I've seem plenty of tires used by riders that looked past their prime to me.

Myself, I'd plan on changing at least the rear tire mid-season, and plan on changing both if you have the money.
Worth it.

ok, so let's sum up. What do I need for full set up?

Warp 9 wheel set ,including rotors and SPROCKET, SIZE 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 AND 47-51 TEETH (which sprockets should I get?)
tires front 90/90 21 and rear 120/90 18
2 x tubes
2 x rim locks

Am I missing something?

I heard some people say they changed the chain to 112, is this necessary?

I'd go with somewhere between a 47 51-tooth rear sprocket.
If you want a compromise between trail riding and street riding, I'd go with a 47 or 48 on the rear.
If you want to slant it toward trail riding, go with a 50.

jacekrsx wrote:

ok, so let's sum up. What do I need for full set up?

Warp 9 wheel set ,including rotors and SPROCKET, SIZE 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 AND 47-51 TEETH (which sprockets should I get?)
tires front 90/90 21 and rear 120/90 18
2 x tubes
2 x rim locks

Am I missing something?

I heard some people say they changed the chain to 112, is this necessary?

I'm not sure where you're at with this, but I bought a set of Warp9s for my WRX sometime in January and finally took them out this past weekend.

I went to a 46 tooth and replaced the original chain with another 520. Put a pair of Dunlop GeoMax MX51s on. For no other reason than they were on sale and seemed like a good tire from what I've read. Probably more tire than I can use since I've ridden in the dirt maybe a total of 10 times now, ever.

Went with a 46 purely based on the fact that I've been wanting to go up some teeth in the back anyways on my street setup when I do the supermoto thing at the go kart track in my area. I only hit maybe 65ish tops and could really use a little more grunt getting out of the corners. Figured with a 46 on the street and dirt, it would reduce the amount of adjustments I would need to do w/the tires when I switch.

2 tubes, 2 rim locks and you're in business. Just a heads up too, the brake rotors are shite. You'll have significantly less bite, which may be a good thing when you're in the dirt anyways. Bike is also ridiculously tall now, for me anyways. I'm literally on my tiptoes. The next time I go out, I may raise the fork tubes a millimeter from the top triple clamp. Front end was REALLY loose. I actually had less confidence in the front w/the dirt tires on than when I've ridden the same stuff with street tires.

Here she is before getting all dirty.

The Geomax is a NON DOT tire though. Beware of this. Where I am, if you get into an accident with non DOT tires, your insurance is void.

IAmABug wrote:

The Geomax is a NON DOT tire though. Beware of this. Where I am, if you get into an accident with non DOT tires, your insurance is void.

Good point. For the first go around, I only intended to use this rim/tire combination for desert rides anyways so they'll never see blacktop.

I might put some dirt focused DOT tires on there the 2nd time around, we'll see. I've gotten away with just lowering the pressure on my street tires a bit so far when hitting off road portions of a ride. Only part that sucks about that is getting back home!

jacekrsx wrote:

Hello,
I have a little dilemma ;)
Last year I got my 08 WR250X, it was my first bike. I wanted something small and easy to handle, and WR is just like that!
After short time, I noticed that I enjoy riding in the woods, and country roads more than asphalt. I got nice set of shinko 705 tires. They are alright but not great.

I was thinking about getting Warp 9 dirt wheels with dunlop 606 tires. Here is my question, what do you think? Is it worth to spend ~ $1k for this wheel/tire set and enjoy driving off-road since I will be riding 50/50 asphalt / off road?
I use this bike for work 5 days per week, it's all asphalt. Only weekends would be for off road stuff.

I know I could switch wheels everythime I wanna off road, but let's be honest, sometimes you just want to hop and ride so I would like to leave only one set all the time.

What are the biggest cons riding off-road tires on asphalt? faster wear? less grip? worse handling? anything else?

ps. selling my WRX and buying WRR is not an option, since there is almost none to chose from where I live ;)

thanks for help

If you plan to ride 50/50 dirt/street definitely get yourself a set of 21/18 wheels. With the right tires they'll be great both on and off road. Save the 17s for a track day or an extended trip.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but the D606 is a 90/10 dirt/street tire. If you intend to ride the 50/50 dirt/street you should consider a 50/50 tire. The WRR comes with the Bridgestone Trailwings TW301/TW302 combo that work very well for me and I'm probably 70/30 dirt/street. I do a lot of pure dirt riding, not just fire roads. You might also consider the Continental TKC which I think I recently read are now available in WRR sizes.

I have about 3000 miles on my Trailwings and the rear is probably 80% used, the front is maybe 40%-50%.

I have a good friend and regular riding partner who has Warp 9 wheels on a DRZ400SM and they work great for him.

-morgan

jacekrsx wrote:

ok, so let's sum up. What do I need for full set up?

Warp 9 wheel set ,including rotors and SPROCKET, SIZE 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 AND 47-51 TEETH (which sprockets should I get?)
tires front 90/90 21 and rear 120/90 18
2 x tubes
2 x rim locks

Am I missing something?

I heard some people say they changed the chain to 112, is this necessary?

If you are just riding country roads skip the rim locks--they make tube changing a lot harder. If you find yourself airing down to, say, 10psi then consider a rim lock but only for the rear--I run 10psi rear and 15psi front for dirt riding and have never had a problem with just a rear rim lock.

For tubes if you want to get serious get UHD (Ultra Heavy Duty). They are a lot harder to install but will dramatically reduce pinch flats. If you are just riding on country roads you can probably get away with regular tubes.

For chain and sprockets what's on the WRX to begin with and can you (do you want to?) use those sprockets? Stock for the WRR is 13/43 which is too tall but functional on light dirt. If you are just cruising on country roads just about anything will work. 13/47 is probably a good compromise between street/dirt if you want to do 50/50 riding. I recently went to 13/51 and it's brilliant in dirt but sets the bike's top speed pretty solidly at 78mph (measured on the GPS).

-morgan

Love the Red hubs. Looks nice for some contrast.

I didn't checked this thread long time, thank you all for your input.
Actually, I went the other way, I sold WRX and got KTM 690 enduro, problem solved :)

I do miss my little yamaha, who know, maybe one day I will get it back ;)