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Tires for Nordkapp to Cape Town? Tires for Nordkapp to Cape Town?
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Equipping the Bike - what's the best gear? Anything to do with the bikes equipment, saddlebags, etc. Questions on repairs and maintenance of the bike itself belong in the Brand Specific Tech Forums.
Photo by Andy Miller, UK, Taking a rest, Jokulsarlon, Iceland

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by Andy Miller, UK,
Taking a rest,
Jokulsarlon, Iceland



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  #1  
Old 23 Jun 2007
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Question Tires for Nordkapp to Cape Town?
We are flying to Munich in a couple of weeks and riding north to Nordkapp, then we'll come down through Eastern Europe to Turkey, Syria and Jordan before proceeding down the east coast of Africa to Cape Town.

Metzeler Tourances have worked very well on my R100GS and Audrey's F650GS. Even performing adequately on gravel and dirt roads, but maybe not so well on mud. The Continental TKC 80s have also been great for us on the gravel but of course the mileage is about half of the Tourances. We figure that from Munich to Nordkapp and down to Istanbul will be about 10,000 km of pavement so the Tourances will be perfect.

Will the Tourances work well down into Africa, e.g. down from Wadi Halfa to Karthoum? We'll probably hit the small rains in November in Kenya or Tanzania so knobblies will be the key there. I'll post on the sub-Saharan forum to find out about TKC 80 availability in Ethiopia or Kenya but if you know something about that I would be happy to hear it!
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Old 24 Jun 2007
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On a trip around Australia I used Michelin T-63 on my R80GS. Good tyres both on gravel and asphalt. I can really recomand them.
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Old 26 Jun 2007
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You could consider a mix of the two tyres. A TCK on the front and a Tourance on the rear.

This will give you the longevity you need, as it's the back that wears first, as well as the control on the front. The back may slide around a bit, but as long as you can point the bike in the right direction you should be OK.

It's a compromise solution but it works pretty well.
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Old 26 Jun 2007
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Hi If It Help's.
I get about 9000 mile's out of a rear Tourance on my bike,but in 2004 I fitted new tyre's before I left the UK and the rear tyre only lasted 3700 mile's in Norway ...The tyre was inflated correctly ,so we put it down the the abrasive road surface...It was also hard to get a replacement tyre I needed in Norway.
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Old 28 Jun 2007
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3,700 miles?!?
Wow, 3,700 miles isn't very far. We've run into the same issue in the Yukon and Alaska where the roads are very abrasive but not to that extent. We were hoping to make it from Munich to Nordkapp to Istanbul on the Tourances but it sounds like that could be tricky.

From the cross post in the Sub-Saharan forum I found that knobbies would be best for the sand in the Sudan but that they could be difficult to obtain once you get much past Istanbul. So our plan (at the moment!) is to buy some TKC 80s in Istanbul.
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Ekke Kok

'84 R100RT 141,000 km (Dad's!)
'89 R100GS 250,000 km (and ready for another continent)
'07 R1200GS Adventure 100,000 km (just finished Circumnavigating Asia)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

www.ekke-audrey.ca
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