I agree, had 'em on my Africa Twin and they were absolute Jack of all trades and pretty damn good at all. And I did some serious mileage on 'em too.:smilies0944:

I'm running T-63 Michelins, and admitly mostly tarmac use but they dont look like they'll get past 2000 miles.
Apart from the wear rate they are well behaved on tar but a little compromised on gloopy stuff and probably not much better (if at all)than TKCs so the wear rate counts against them as an option IMO. Though the carcases are super stiff so could probably stand running lower pressures than the TKCs with less fear of rim pinch punctures (small dubious benifit in reality on the Ten due to its wieght). They growl like tractor tyres at speed.

Not bad if you have to do your shopping in the snow either-

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...DSC00306-1.jpg

My E-09's are coming up to 6000 miles now. They've gone beyond being much use for dirt now (although they are prob still better than the ****ing Tourances :D), but still work on the road.

The Tourances didn't last me any longer. So the conclusion is...run the knobblies all the time.

I expect TKCs would last about the same, but since they are more expensive I don't really see any point in trying :D

As a guideline - when I took the Tenere to the US in 80/09, I covered 23,000 miles...

Initially I fitted a set of MT21's as the TKCs were on back order everywhere, and they were shot by about 3000 miles...

After that I used TKCs exclusively, and got through 4 rear and 3 front for the rest of the trip - so I'd say around 5000 miles on the rear and about 7000 from a front - that's over mixed terrain, a lot of desert and trails, plus a LOT of highway too...

I agree they are quite pricey for a 'knobbly' and compared to the alternatives, however, as Midlife says, they are a very good all-rounder tyre, particularly so on the Tenere.

For info, the MT21's were ghastly at 30psi, running them at 25psi improved things whereas the TKC was not so sensitive, although on the whole I ran them softer than the handbook suggests (although the handbook figure really only relates to OEM fitments anyway).

What I would suggest, and has been mentioned above, is not running the tyres on the Tenere much lower than 20psi - it's a big heavy bike, and you do don't want to ding a rim.

That said, on Heroes I was running mousses the whole time which are the equivalent of 15-18psi, and it didn't seem unduly affected - however, you can't pinch a tube with a mousse of course...

Toot toot!

J x