Pirelli Scorpion Rally now in 150/70-17

Lookin pretty Nice!!!

Ryan

You'll find in gravel and gritty loose stuff the E09 brakes and drives really well.

Where it turns to crap is wet red clay. It drives and brakes well which inspires overconfidence, but over cook one turn just slightly and the bike is out from under you and you are watching it disappear off the side of the trail before you can say "whatthefuckjusthappened".

Because the lugs on the rear are arranged in bar pattern there's very little resistance to side slip. It gets worse as they wear.

Still a good tyre, you just modify the riding style to suit. Drive harder into a turn, brake harder, drive harder out. All straight line stop and go, if you get what I mean.

I ran the Dunlop D952 on the front with the E09 rear and it worked really well on the sort of gravel your pic has. It also has a similar tread to the Rally Tyre you have on there. I've found the D952 to be an almost bullet proof front for the mountains here, and notice a lot of other guys on bigger dual sports have come to the same conclusion.

Thanks Ryan!

Hey Snowy,

Yeah that's pretty much what I figured when I looked at the tire.

Thankfully no wet red clay here! Some mud in doubletrack and singletrack...I'll have to be a little more aware of my lines.

I really wanted it for the drive on steep loose stuff and going over tough obstacles. That is where it shines so far. Square up the corners...gotcha!

Love the feel of the Rally so far. The casing is much more reassuring hitting the rocks and such. Starting to feel better in the gravel turns as it's breaking in. It sure does sing on the highway!!

That 952 has a lot of space down the middle. It must be loud/rough on the road?

There are still no perfect tires?

Dave

ecce,

Sounds like you're liking the front Karoo 2. Road manners are good enough? Lasts OK? Doesn't ramp too badly and is OK noise wise?

How about off-road? Gravel, deep gravel, sharp rocks, mud, roots etc.? All better than the TKC? Stiffer casing I imagine too.

Thanks!

Dave

I have a spare Karoo 2 for the front, thought I would try it when the Scorpion Rally is spent. It's definitely more road-oriented than the rally, with closer spaced and shorter knobs. The Karoo(T) that came on the bike was so bad offroad I pulled it off after just 200 miles. I'm skeptical about the regular Karoo front. OTOH, the rally has been just fantastic. It has about 2500 miles on it with maybe another thousand to go. Starting to 'ramp' a bit, so it may come off before it's fully worn down. They do firm up with a few hundred miles on them and will rail the corners, both on and off pavement.

Nice bike, nice tires, hope there is a nice man under that helmet

Pssst...Dude...I think he's hitting on you....

Oh yeah. Every heard a Jeep with those WW2 bar tread tyres coming down the highway flat out? Like that.

When you hit the brakes for a big stop the noise gets louder and slows down in frequency.

Sounds like an old Army truck pulling up. But they hook up well. Doing some big descents on them and then changing back to the E07s and riding the same trails was scary. It's like you expect a level of traction and braking and it just isn't there with the E07. The Heidenaus were the same. Just not enough traction on the descents. I find with a pillion, I tend to going a lot slower going down trails than coming up them. Momentum works for you going up with a load, it doesn't work for you going down.

The Rally front looks good. Not real sure about that rear though. Even in sand it doesn't have a deep enough lug to drive, too few slots to give side ways resistance, too large a surface for sandy gritty hard based tracks.

Based on a scan by the L1A1 (mark 2 - version 4) eyeball. I'd say they don't look much good for anything in particular. But there's less useful tyres out there for sure.

16000km on a pair of Rally's...


front:




rear:

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Gees, I don't know....is that rear still legal? Those South Oz coppers see that they'll yell "Outlaw" and taser you until you stop kickin.

Are the Police task force boys still wearing their 99%er patches? The dicks. Makes me ashamed to have been born a South Orstrayun.

On a tyre note, what do you think of the Rallye on the red dirt? Hook up and brake ok? What about side slip? Let go easy or controlled?

i found the hook-up and braking to be great... but i recon the go sideways a bit in the deeper dirt and sand... quite a few time i found the back heading sideways for the deepest rut....

amazed how long the lasted (rear about twice a TKC, front about the same.. also gave no highway wobbles (and they were spooned on out in the bush and not balanced

i'm not a convert yet, but i'd run them again in the right circumstances...

prob if i was to re-do the 16,000km these did again i'd go with TKC-80s as i normally run them, just to compare the 2 tyres over the same 'interesting' terrain...

waiting on a back order of K60's to arrive...trying one of those next...

.

Yeah, the K60 won't drive in the red stuff. It'll last...yeah sure...but actually drive and brake...er..no.

The roads around the Snowy Mtns are mostly fine gravel on red clay. When these roads are wet the K60 was just like the Scorpion Trail. They were ok in the gravel I thought, but my wife on the back reckons the rear moved around a lot. I thought it moved around a little. She says she was shitting bricks most of the time on gravel and as a result she tensed up and all her back muscles would start going nuts.

Changed to E07 and she says it's much easier on her back. Weird.

I did make a tyre iron and groove out the K60s, they had roughly 10,000km on them and had 7mm out of 13 left at centre.



I put a couple thousand kms on them like this and they were heaps better on gravel. They started to sweat an oily residue just after I changed them. They'd been sitting in the sun for a week. They have a blue sheen on them now, and when it rains, an oily rainbow. Don't know why.

Quite happy with the rear Rally on my Guzzi. Tread life has yet to be determined. For reference, I got about 3500 miles out of a TKC-80 rear. The Rally has great traction overall (ideal for surfaces shown, IMHO) with a slight decrease in lateral grip when compared to the TKC-80.

The only thing I'd add is that they hang on great on the tar, but the outside knobs tend to wear badly if you get frisky 2 up and start dragging your toes and pegs.

Great off road. Really like them.

What tire pressure are you riding them on road and off? Are you adjusting them to terrain?
I hear good things in general about both Karoo's including some of the guys riding the GS Trophy event and the Karoo T's that are mounted on these bikes

90kms.

That's how long it took riding solo to chunk and rip the Rallye.

More damage, off road, in 90kms than in the previous thousand 2 up.

They don't like being run hard and wheel spinning. They work ok at it, they just don't wear ok doing it.

The scorp rally front finally got squirelly after about 3500 miles so I put the Karoo II on it that I had sitting around. The rally looked about 75% worn. I run everything at about 20lbs on and off, or air up to 25lbs or so if it's gonna be a long road trek (which I don't do on this bike). It does not bite as well as the rally offroad but is okay, works fine on road, no head-shake at 75-plus so that's good. This is on the Husqvarna TE630 though.

The Karoo (T) Traveler were absolute pieces of shit. Worst tire I've ever run on a bike. The front I took off at 200 miles, the rear was worn to 1/8" in 750 miles. I would run 25lbs on road and 18-20 off. This is on a 325lb bike.

Next tire I'm trying on the front is a T63 since I like them so well for the rear.

On the Tiger XC either the stock Scorpion Trails or the Fullbore USA M40/41's. Both are great tires.

Have you tried an E-09? I've been pretty surprised how well they hold up to a beating...

Will they be as easy to take on and off as the TKCs?

better off than on. It's a mostly off road oriented tire and if you try it on street you'll have soon to buy a new one )

http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/pirelli-mt21-rear-tires