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Front or Rear Off road

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gboswellsac

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If you had to pick whether to put a TKC70 on the front or the rear and leave the other tire a Pilot 4 when you knew you might need to go through some mud which tire would you do front or rear as you can only do one tire. Tell us why also. I may need to make this decision in a week. Thanks
 
JDE said:
I haven't seen a 17" front for the TKC70 yet. So by default it would have to go on the rear. Maybe they do offer the front somewhere, but I haven't seen it.
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Well Alaska Leather had one for the front and rear assumming I can use a 130/80 front and 150/70 rear .... but regardless if i could only do one (of any 60/40 etc. Tire) which should i do and why? One person there said the front for handling and another said the rear for traction and I realize I should do both but can only do one. Thanks
 
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gboswellsac said:
If you had to pick whether to put a TKC70 on the front or the rear and leave the other tire a Pilot 4 when you knew you might need to go through some mud which tire would you do front or rear as you can only do one tire. Tell us why also. I may need to make this decision in a week. Thanks
Click to expand...

definitely more off-road oriented tyre on the rear. I prefer though to have same tyres on both wheels.
 
Seems to be a personal preference as I have seen people do it both ways. For me I prefer to have the more off-road tire up front. I can handle the rear sliding around better than the front. That would also depend on the mud. If you are talking up hill or a mud hole with a ridge at the end then you would need better traction in the rear to even get up the hill or out of the hole.
 
The way they are listed by other dealers there are no front 17" TKC70 so some dealers may say they will install a 17" rear tire on the front ????? There is some general debate on that front to rear flip.

There are many other choices to the TKC 70 especially given what they might cost.
 
My preference is knobby on the front so that when I'm going downhill, the front tire will have better traction/control. On the other hand, you specifically said if going in the MUD so my preference would be neither and to go around the mud as I've been there, done that and I'm not into that anymore, not without a <500 cc bike.
 
What Bama said. More off road tire on the front, when the rear slides around you may still have some control, but when the front slides you have NO control. You can get a quick introduction to the ground. I have a KDX 200, which is a 2 stroke dirt bike. I run a trials tire on the rear and knobby on the front.
 
Yeah, i've only done real off-road riding on pedal bikes, but as there probably aren't too many people with slick/knobby mullet experience, figured i'd add my two cents anyway. I always run the more aggressive knobby in front on mountain bikes, sometimes with a semi-slick in back. Reason is what others have cited: Some rear slide can be handled, any front slide is much harder to handle, far lower threshold for total loss of control.

My gut says with a knobby back, slick front on a motorcycle, the better rear traction could turn what would otherwise be some rear spinout into a front slide. Back tire hooks up, and pushes the front beyond it's traction capacity. Maybe someone who's actually done both on a bike with a motor can contradict me, but I feel my speculation is fairly well informed by lots of time spent sliding around on two wheels :)

My feeling is the slick in the back = more likely to get stuck on bad surfaces, slick in the front = more likely to crash on bad surfaces. I'd pick stuck over crashing.
 
Good advice, especially avoid the mud. Guess I'd better wait till I get back to TX before I change and maybe do BOTH to off road, and skip the D2D this year. Thanks everyone for the great advice.
 
Ed Up said:
What Bama said. More off road tire on the front, when the rear slides around you may still have some control, but when the front slides you have NO control. You can get a quick introduction to the ground. I have a KDX 200, which is a 2 stroke dirt bike. I run a trials tire on the rear and knobby on the front.
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well, I don't agree and I've just returned from sand and mud 30 minutes ago. Doing this training almost every day. If you have no knobies on the rear where you have propulsion you have no control anyway. You just slide sideways away and you're done. Front wheel on loose terrain you have to unload by moving your body back and you really steer the motorcycle offroad with rear wheel NOT front as well as with your feet not hands.
 
Let me add to my comments on having a knobby on the front is not primarily for the flat roads, but when going down a fairly significant grade is when I'm most concerned about front control.
 
Ed Up said:
What Bama said. More off road tire on the front, when the rear slides around you may still have some control, but when the front slides you have NO control. You can get a quick introduction to the ground. I have a KDX 200, which is a 2 stroke dirt bike. I run a trials tire on the rear and knobby on the front.
Click to expand...

+2 for the same exact reasons. I can control a sliding rear tire a whole lot better than a front one.

If you see Mikaela with Alaska Leather tell her Trey and Chris from Austin say hi!

trey
 
Another plus for knobby up front. I also ride dirt and mud with a trail bike. Loss of rear tire traction is managable. Loss of front tire traction often results in a crash.
 
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If you are in conditions where you can ride and not immediately crash with a plain old street tire up front, then I would think having a more aggressive mud oriented tire on the rear would be wasted, and potentially have the ability to drive you further into conditions that would soon overwhelm the front street tire anyway.

I would always go for a dirt friendly tire up front, over the other way around if there was only one choice. Having front tire wash out is infinitely harder to control than a rear tire doing the same thing. For me, anyway.
 
It can be very terrain and conditions dependent. So unless it was me riding, and where exactly, and what exactly I was doing, I would imagine it could be quite different from 10 other people doing 10 different rides in 10 different parts of the country/world. It's really a personal call I guess. I wouldn't go near mud or wet grassy/overgrown weeds and moss with a front street tire and not expect a goodly amount of crashing, lol. Gravel or hardpack, meh, not so much a worry.
 
I guess we don't understand each other, we're talking here not just offroad, gravel etc but sand and mud...
With street tyre in rear you won't go very far if at all so whatever you have on front doesn't really matter...
Don't tell me you ride mud downhill...because I have never seen any mud downhill yet LOL (must be something to do with gravity and water :)

p.s.
Why avoid mud and sand? in fact there the most entertaining environment for me play with, at least for me.
 
wildeone said:
I guess we don't understand each other, we're talking here not just offroad, gravel etc but sand and mud...
With street tyre in rear you won't go very far if at all so whatever you have on front doesn't really matter...
Don't tell me you ride mud downhill...because I have never seen any mud downhill yet LOL (must be something to do with gravity and water :)

p.s.
Why avoid mud and sand? in fact there the most entertaining environment for me play with, at least for me.
Click to expand...

Dude, the question of preference was asked, and I gave my answers. :p

I've been riding for over 40+ years, and a lot of that time has been in mud, snow, sand, gravel, etc. I know what I know now, due to the types and frequencies of crashes I've had lol :eek: :D and can only reference things based on my personal conclusions and reasoning. If you are the opposite, well... I don't know what to say other than good for you, and have fun!

I much prefer a more controllable front end than the rear tire. I can do anything with an out of shape, skittery, lost traction and so on rear tire. I find that fun to spin up and get all squirrelly. Front, not so much. Have never liked a spooky front tire, that's just me.
 
L.B.S. said:
I much prefer a more controllable front end than the rear tire. I can do anything with an out of shape, skittery, lost traction and so on rear tire. I find that fun to spin up and get all squirrelly. Front, not so much. Have never liked a spooky front tire, that's just me.
Click to expand...

well, as you said - good for you and good luck with that bold rear tyre in mud.
 
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