Mitas E-09 I found to be much better than the TKC on price, wear and usability. Might just be me tho. But then I've tried umpteen different tryes and this seems to come out tops.

tks are a decent all rounder ..for sure
the price difference is 140s are T rated and the 130 S RATED

im using mitus e09s at the moment ...the rear is very good off road and pretty decent on
the front is not as good as a tk on the road but a little better off ...i dont know what others find but the fron e09 is wearing pretty qickly and has a irregular wear on the blocks ..i reackon it may go before the rear which is holding up well at 2500 miles ..

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/c...head/DAKAR.jpg

The 140 I tried was Q rated, not T, a lower speed rating than the 130/80 S?

My front is a Metzeler Unicross and is wearing well. Good on road and brilliant off.

Hi Chaps, My tyres came yesterday so today was tyre change day, 3 new leavers & 2 new innertubes incase i pinched the old 1s, i done the front 1st as im a tyre change virgin, easy peasy! then the back..........man the back tyre didnt want to have its bead broken even putting it in a monster vice, loads of soap, blood n sweat tears later it decided to give, after that it was straight forward really, putting the new rear on was alot harder but i kept on thinking if its hard then im doing it wrong, (read that on here). got it on in the end tho with little bits at a time & plenty of soap. When i blow up the tyre lots of bubbles came out of the valve hole with all the soap, that made me think i had pinched the tube putting the tyre on but false alarm. While i had the back off i changed the pads & upgraded the cush drive rubbers with cut up innertube. The hardest bit was putting the back wheel on, couldnt lift the wheel up & line the disk to the pads while holding the spacers in place & get the spindle thru. if anyones got some tips on refitting back wheel to make it easy? please shout up. All back together now & after a test ride realised i didnt do pinch bolts up on the front spindle, schoolboy error. Rides better now, here are a few pics. Thanx for all the advice i received off here, Dave

It's never 'easy', really stupid fiddly design - but that's true of almost all the bikes I've had, very few manufacturers do it well.

Best way I've found is as follows:

1) Make sure you've pushed the brake pads back as far as possible, and hooked the chain out of the way over the end of the swingarm
2) Sit down on the floor behind the bike
3) Roll the wheel right in until it hits the front of the swingarm, getting the brake disc located between the pads.
4) Stick your foot flat on the floor behind the wheel.
5) Roll the wheel back up onto your foot, keeping the disc between the pads, but bringing it far enough back that you can put the spacers in.
6) Let it roll forwards again to locate in the swingarm, using one hand and your foot to line it up and the other hand to stick the spindle through.
7) Before you push the spindle right through (and thus trap the chain adjusters in their pockets), push the wheel right forwards and hook the chain onto the sprocket.

Most of the time this works fairly effortlessly, but there's always the odd occasion where you end up dropping spacers in the dirt anyway.

Cheers uberthumper i will give it ago next time, did you read that in the Kama Sutra book???

I've not read it, but I'm sure all the positions described are less physically demanding and infinitely more enjoyable than putting the rear wheel back in a Tenere :D

Yea too true

Just put new TKC's on my bike .

There is a knack to breaking the bead on the rear tyre, but if I tell you I will have to kill you:Gangsta2_9BI664:

A tip for the rear wheel is that before removal, ease the brake pads away from the disc using the disc as a support to lever from. Makes it easier to put the wheel back in.

Use zip ties around the spokes and the sprocket to keep the assemby tight together, this stops the cush drive hub from coming away from the wheel hub.

The trick with braking the bead on the rear wheel is that most people try to push the tyre away from the wheel rim. This in effect tries to roll the bead on the tyre over the raised portion in the wheel rim.
I have found that using a thin tyre lever, I have an Adv-spec combo lever wheel spanner, you can get the end of the lever underneath the bead and then lever said bead into the centre of the wheel. Takes me minutes and with just a little lever. You can then just push the rest of the bead off the wheel rim.

Hope this makes sense and can be of use to you.:eusa_clap: