Pirelli MT 43...Trials Tire the Final Chapter

Baja tire test

I have now totaled up approximately 4,000 miles on a couple of Pirelli MT 43 rear tires and have purchased a third. After having logged enough miles to give an objective rating to the MX43.com readers I will continue using the trials tire with the addition of the tubesaddle mentioned previously.

The tire wore extremely well even in rocks when used as a trail riding tire, I did not push it at race speeds because it was never meant for that purpose. I had no chunking of knobs and nice even wear with both tires. The first went approximately 1700 miles and the second one was pushed to 2150 miles as I had to get home from a multi day ride in Mexico. This included a fair amount of commuting (500 miles) on Mexican roadways as they are paving way too quickly for my taste. A word of advice, if you want to ride Baja the longer you wait the more pavement you will encounter.

As a recap, I did use a tubesaddle liner on this trip but ran it with the air pressure set at 12 psi instead of the 7 to 8 psi the manufacturer, James Curry, said would be no problem. I never had a pinch flat but did pick up a cactus thorn and had to do one flat repair on the trip. I was riding with a very large group of riders and several of them changed to new tires part way through the trip. But I didn’t want to be that guy that holds everyone up, you know with a pinch flat because I ran low air pressure for better traction. I will now begin testing the tubesaddle on my own with lower pressures and let you know how well it prevents pinch flats as I begin airing down bit by bit.

The Pirelli MT 43 performed very well in everything we encountered from hard to sand to rocks. I generally tried to go slightly slower than most of the other riders up the same climbs to test the tire without using momentum to climb things. I was impressed with its clawing action as long as you used a judicious throttle hand. I finally did notice one place the knobby tire provided an advantage. On steep descents I could feel the trials tire would skid slightly sooner when using the front brake hard and transferring the weight to the front of the bike. Nothing scary but it felt like a well worn rear tire in that instance. It was easy to control by using the rear brake a bit lighter once I felt it.

So just like in MMA fighting (mixed martial arts) we are about to begin round 3………ding, ding!

#33

The Out of Towner Tour

I just had a great time riding with a few buddies from out of town that came for a visit. Of course they all brought motorcycles why else would they visit? The characters on this trip were Terrmeister (Terry), Recon (Don), Gino Belino (Gene) and #33.

We had a great time on a 3 day romp through the desert stopping of course along the way for burgers and tacos respectively each day. The first day included a stop by a local shop, B&M Cycles that happened to be having a vintage show/get together. Terrmeister and Gino could both really appreciate this because they both have quite a collection of vintage bikes, some beautifully restored. Recon liked it pretty well too because there were FREE Cookies and Drinks. Anything free to eat is like a flame to a moth when Recon is involved. He is all over it!

I was astounded that there were 2 bikes, a 1914 Indian and a 1914 Flying Merkel that were perfectly restored and valued at a minimum of $150,000 Each!  Wow, I even touched one. There was a whole slew of Maicos, Triumphs, Harley road racers, Honda Elsinore’s, and a bunch of others. Cool stuff, some of which I remembered I rode when they were new!

Then it was time to ride, as Recon would repeat several times over the next few days, “I just wanna ride!”  So we head out for a half day orientation ride to get the feel of the desert with no traction, lots of rocks and lots of miles. I cautioned the boys to be careful in rocks and used my left hand as a reminder. I had warned Gino to buy some elbow guards and he did, smart boy. Terrmeister didn’t have any so I loaned him a pair of hard plastic guards. He had no idea how grateful he would be later. Our first ride went pretty well with no one getting too carried away but a few tip-overs on slippery off cambers and hills. I discovered a couple of things about the boys on our first outing. Gino was the hill climber, Recon liked to go fast in the sand washes and Terrmeister wanted to escape unscathed. But then he is the wisest one in the group at 68 years old!

Our second day was our longest day and turned out to be about 160 miles and almost 10 hours by the time we got home. We saw some scenic places, an old restored cabin, a defunct mine that Recon and I explored with flashlights while I am pretty sure Terrmeister and Gino took a nap! We then stopped for gas and a burger at a roadside stop called Wikkieup. But just before the lunch stop, at about 90 miles, Terrmeister had a tip over in a tight sand wash that was fairly rocky in spots. Unfortunately he picked one of the rocky spots and gashed a hole in the left side radiator on his borrowed Honda CRF-X 450. Terrmeister is a motorcycle mechanic by trade and was about to remove the damaged radiator and cap the openings. He figured he could get it home on one radiator without too much problem. Gino and I said maybe we should try to patch it first, but we are Okie trailside repair kind of guys. Recon just stayed the Hell out of the way since he doesn’t do any more wrenching than absolutely necessary! Since I carry Quick Steel putty in my tool pack I told Terrmeister I had repaired side cases with it before. Terrmeister looked at me kind of crazy and then said ok if I really thought it might work. So I gave him my putty and told him how it worked. He made a patch and started the bike, it leaked. But we could see where he had missed a spot. So he added some more and extended the patch to cover the damage, filled the radiator with water, fired it up and no leak!  Away we went to lunch and completed the rest of the ride with the patched and twisted radiator.

On our way home it was getting late in the day and we were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Gino exceeded his limits of traction a couple of times and did an imitation of a baseball player sliding into home plate. We made it home with only a few scratches and no real injuries. We fixed the stuff we bent and broke and got ready for the Monday Taco ride.

Mondays are a short (45 mile) rip over to Golden Shores for dollar tacos at a place called Hooch’s Bar and Grill. We met up with two more riders Capt Don (Don) and Montana John aka M.J.   After a half hour or more B.S. session we head out to ‘get our grub on’ as Recon would call it. We maybe make 3 miles when Recon starts flagging us down. He has a rear flat tire (nail) and since he is running a Pirelli trials tire we have to fix it right now. With help he is back on the trail in about 30 minutes. We make it to Hooch’s with only a couple of tip over’s and get our fill of tacos, tostadas and beverages.  On the way home we divide into 2 groups, Terrmeister, Capt Don and M.J. make up one group and they deal with a flat on the way home. Recon and I make the other group and we have no mechanicals but do our best to get lost a bit while trying to find a small canyon I had been in before. We eventually all make it home safely, visit for a while and say our good byes.

Recon, Terrmeister and #33 do a short road ride home, put the bikes away, load Cheryl up and head out for a farewell dinner. We eat out on the patio of a restaurant overlooking the lake. Good Times, Good Friends.

#33

‘The last thing to age on somebody is their heart’

Pirelli MT43 Trials Tire After 1500 Miles

Trials Tire Update

After approximately 1500 miles on a Pirelli MT43 rear trials tire I have a pretty fair idea of what to expect.  Since it is now pretty much worn out I expect to buy another one!  Mileage alone makes it a very desirable tire in the rocky terrain I normally ride on.  I would estimate it would have taken me at least 2 knobby tires to get that kind of mileage and they would have been completely destroyed.

At the onset of this test my first concern was pinch flatting. I never look forward to fixing flats on the trails. So I kept the Pirelli at 12 psi with a super heavy duty tube. The traction in loose rocky terrain is as good as or better than my usual knobby tires. It performed surprisingly well in the sand washes I encountered. The only exception being when I came to sand hills, I felt it lacked a bit when climbing sandy hills, lacking any paddle action. Momentum was a definite requirement in those conditions.

The difference I felt between the knobby and trials tire was that the knobby performed more like a paddle and liked more throttle. Whereas the trials tire would do fine with the same throttle but also liked to be fed smaller doses of throttle in slow going and would keep hooking up and propelling me forward. I know you are thinking “dumbass” of course it does it is a TRIALS TIRE!  But since it is not on a trials bike with stump pulling torque I didn’t expect it to work as well on a cross country bike. I was pleasantly surprised.

I also noticed a slightly cushier ride due to the tall side wall and lower pressures. It was enough that I slowed my rebound on the shock one click to compensate for the cushy sidewall. To address the cushier sidewall issues, my biggest concern was pinch flatting. I usually ride with others in a group or trail ride alone exploring at a casual pace. One day I took a rocky single-track and rode a more aggressive pace than usual. I made it about 15 minutes before I pinch flatted. This was my first flat in about 1100 miles! But to be objective it was on a fairly well worn tire that had about ½ inch less rubber than it did when new. My evaluation is that if you are a “trail racer” you may have to run higher pressures than the 12 psi I tried. But if you are a let’s have fun and go anywhere type of rider, you should never have a problem.  The Pirelli made it 1100 miles before I got too carried away and got my first flat.  Now for the bad news, I know a lot of you have ridden out of places on a flat tire before. You will not do this on a trials tire, if you get a flat you must stop and fix it. There is not enough sidewall support and you will ruin the tube and tire if you continue. Besides being a real pain to ride on or get up any kind of hill.

I just watched a video on a new rim insert that supplements a normal tube and claims to all but eliminate pinch flats. Maybe someone has just cured my trials tire pinch flat fears!  Could be my next test item!

#33

I don’t have gray hair; I have ‘Wisdom Highlights’, I’m just very wise.

How Well Do Trials Tires Work on the Trail?

     Pirelli MT 43 Trials Tire

I have been hearing a lot of noise about the off road community using trials tires with good results. Reluctantly, I thought it was about time to give one a try instead of listening to all the second hand stories. So here I am with a Pirelli MT 43 size 400-18 on the back of my 500 KTM XCW.

The reason I said ‘reluctantly’ was because a few years back I had tried one on a buddy’s bike (300 KTM) and only got about10 minutes of ride time. The first 9 ½ minutes went great. It was that last 30 seconds that discouraged me from putting one on my bike. On my buddy’s 300 KTM I wanted to see how the tire worked when I went from trail riding to more race pace on the trail. I rode very aggressively and ripped a hole in the side wall on some rocks. In all fairness I am not sure of the brand of that particular tire, so with all the positive reports on the Pirelli I am going to give it a shot on my bike. I will be able to give a full report as I log lots of miles on it. It is a crappy job but someone has to do it and for the mx43 readers I am willing to make the sacrifice!

In the meantime I have had it on for 2 days now and have put about 150 miles of sand wash, rocks, rocky singletrack, graded roads and rocky jeep roads. The first day was casual trail riding and exploring, but the second day was a fast paced very aggressive trail ride that I almost expected to end with a flat.  No pavement yet and I am going to do my best not to abuse it on the pavement because all the info I have gotten says that is the Achilles heel of trials tires. However I did look closely at this Pirelli and see a DOT designation on the sidewall, so it may do ok on the road. But I cannot comment on that yet.

When I mounted the Pirelli I had to inflate it enough to seat the bead with a loud ‘pop’ like when they seat a car tire at the tire shop. Since I carry a bicycle tire pump that may be a bit of work to air it up when performing a trailside repair, since I do not carry co2 cartridges. I am running 12 psi until I know more of what to expect, then I will air down a bit. This is a must do repair in the event of a flat. These tires have such a soft pliable sidewall to help with their ability to get traction that they can NOT be limped home on the rim. It will destroy your tire and jeopardize your rim. You must fix it on the trail.

I will continue the torture test and let you know how it hooks up in all conditions, any problems  I encounter and how well it wears. So far it shows only a little wear on the leading edge of the knobs from me being over aggressive on the rocky sections.

My initial impression is very positive for a long wearing, competitively priced tire as long as you are not going racing.

#33

The “Unexpected” Ride

Not All Rides Go As Planned!

Have you ever been on a ride that everything that happened was pretty much unexpected? I recently went on that ride. Usually when I go I have some sort of plan, it can be a short ride, a long ride, an exploring ride or just a leisurely day on the bike.  This time I didn’t have any plan because I was invited to go on a ride that started in Tecate, Mexico and went south toward Mikes Sky Ranch.

I was an add on, the third wheel and that suited me just fine. It saved me from doing all the preplanning, worrying about gas, food, lodging and whatever else might require thought. I was looking forward to just following along and not making the decisions. The ride was planned by a couple of guys that are right on the 70 plus mark in birthdays, Phil and Peter. These guys are pretty impressive taking on multi day rides and not exactly poking along on the trip!

A little background on these Super Geezers, Phil is a retired Podiatrist so I guess that makes him ‘Dr. Phil’.  Peter is originally from the United Kingdom and is now a Canadian citizen. That is a real treat to hear the guy tell you he is from Canada in an English accent!  The first time I did a double take to see if he was laughing while he was pulling my leg. But he was serious, I just never get used to that accent coming from the Canadian.

The trip started out with a text on Phil’s phone from a buddy telling him to stop at all the stop signs and lights in Tecate. Apparently the local Policia make pretty good money on the visiting Americans for their California stops.  Well we made it about 10 seconds across the border and Peter’s WR 250 was reluctant to keep running. He had to bump start it in the first block and it just so happened the end of the block had a stoplight that Peter failed to notice and he rode right through it!  Phil started to follow him until I yelled “Stop” and he did, just in time to see it turn green.  No cops showed up so I figured we were in the clear.

We went another7 or 8 blocks and I heard a siren behind us, I thought great, they are going to throw us in jail for running stop lights! At a stop light I pulled to the right as the cop pulled up behind Phil and Peter with the red lights going and occasionally hitting his siren and speaking Spanish into his microphone. The boys sat frozen at the light until the cop got impatient realizing that we were dumb Americans and spoke in English into the microphone, “Go Right, Go Right!”  Once they finally moved the cop sped through the intersection and away he went to a call.  I was thinking ‘Awesome!’ We don’t have to go to jail or pay a fine!

Now I am thinking let’s get out of this town before something else happens. It didn’t take long, as we started out of town toward the motel it started to rain. We got to the motel and got our rooms, cabins actually and headed in to take off our wet clothes and warm up. It was a bit ‘unexpected’ to see our rooms had no sheets, blankets or pillows on any of the beds. I thought maybe they just forgot to prep the cabins so I went to the office to inquire. No Senor there are no linen in the rooms, you must bring your own!  I politely pointed out that we were riding off road motorcycles and not carrying any linen. She was nice enough to round up some extra blankets and sheets for us.

There was no place nearby to get anything to eat and since it was raining we were not getting back on the bikes to go find food.  It was a bit ‘unexpected’ to have a motel with no place to eat so we made a beeline for their little ‘Tienda’ or store to see what we could scrounge. We found breakfast type rolls, chips, tuna, soda and a few other things to hold us over.

The next few days had some great riding due to the rain that soaked us on the way in. We rarely saw dust until the last day and explored some areas I had never been in before. Unfortunately Peter’s WR 250 had an ‘unexpected’ issued with the carb and the throttle stuck open. We spent a little over two hours disassembling and looking for the problem while trying to make tools work that didn’t quite fit. We got back on the road and encountered another throttle problem on the little WR, but this time the throttle stuck closed. It was getting late in the day and Phil ended up towing Peter into our stopover in Valley La Trinidad. We rolled in just about dusk and were lucky to get a couple of rooms.

The following day Peter decided to stay back and work on his bike while Phil and I went over the hills to Rancho Meling. Thanks Peter! Did I mention that it was about the best day of riding I have ever had in Mexico? The weather was good and the roads and trails were wet from the rains. No dust all day long, Phil and I rode anywhere we wanted wheel to wheel and never saw dust. Including the sand washes. That day we covered about 100 miles and you couldn’t wipe the grin off our faces.

The final day Peter has his bike back in shape and we head back toward the border because now we are not sure how long the little WR is going to cooperate. As we head north the boys put me in front and I am so busy looking for a road we can use to get to another area I take an ‘unexpected’ trip off the road and into a very large boulder that I luckily use as a berm and avoid a crash. I tell myself to stop being a pinhead and pay attention instead of looking around. It worked for about 3 minutes then we came to a cool little town I had never seen and I was so busy looking around again I almost rode into a local driving an F-150 pickup. Completely ‘unexpected’ since I don’ think there were more than 3 cars in this whole town and 2 of them probably didn’t run. Second note to self “Pay attention Dumbass!”

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful except for the ‘unexpected’ truck full of Federales I went whizzing past in an area that may have been questionable as to whether or not we were supposed to be there. I waved, immediately broke eye contact and got on the gas. I think I heard a few muffled shouts but I can’t be sure. My bike seemed kinda loud for a moment. Since I was leading I figured it would be crazy to stop since the fellas were somewhere behind me. The military dudes would probably tell them whatever they were trying to tell me. Besides, one of us had to be available to bail the others out, right?  It took an awful long time for the boys to catch up as I waited down the road for them. It seems the Military guys got out in the road to stop Peter and Phil and proceeded to make them open all of their back packs, fanny packs and rolls they were carrying. Sometimes I do like leading.

We explored our way back to the border in Tecate and an ‘unexpected’ treat was that there was no one in line when we got there. I have never gotten that lucky when crossing back into the USA. We were loaded up and heading for home in about 30 minutes. I may have found a new starting point for my rides south!

#33

“Do not follow where the path may lead – go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”