are knobby tyres preferred for Morocco?
 

going there in spring and wonder should I change my dunlop D609 Trailmax street tyres for e.g. continental tkc 80 or it's not necessary. I know I don't have to go off-road but but in general will I be better off with knobby tyres?
just in case?

Hi robson

I'll be going there myself in march this year and I'll have my Heidenau K60 Scout on my BMW R1200 GS Adventure.
I do not explicitly search for gravel road travelling but if it happens I feel very sure with those tyres now. I had my surprises - So happend to me last time entering Northern Albania from Gusine in Montenegro. The first approx. 70 km were all gravel road, often in quite bad conditions. At the time I had normal Conti Attac 2 tyres on and was lucky that the road was dry. Eversince I changed to " Heidi" as we call them here. They are quite durable i. e. I have to change mine now after 13000km - not so bad. I do like the handling as well as the "singing" they do between 60 and 90 km/h

A Heidi rear combined with a TKC 80 front is a good set up, it depends if you want to stick to asphalt then its not necessary and a waste of money, but Morocco has some beautiful areas to explore and a huge amount of dirt pistes to have fun on.

Not sure where you are travelling from, but from the UK I would run road tyres all the way through Europe, carry the dirt tyres and fit them when I get there (or get a good motorcycle tyre shop to fit them)

Or buy them and get them fitted in s of Spain, probably cheaper there too

I noticed Morocco is almost entirely paved unless you are specifically seeking out dirt road (IE unmarked desert pistes requiring GPS coordinates). Mauritania was the first place where off-road tires would have really done me any good.

Found this place in France that has great tire prices,
Pneu Heidenau K60, pneu moto - Centrale Pneus
,this is for the k60 but you can find others there.

you may find morocco is entirely paved from a map, but the maps are not to be entirely trusted.

I have done lots of trail finding and from good advice find that trails are certainly not paved, have been destroyed or were never there!

I am going in April for a month and will be getting the best knobblies I can find because I want to do some off road trails and don't want the tyres to limit me too much. If you are staying to the main roads then go with road tyres and be happy, but if you are getting off the main roads be prepared for worse than you might have been told. Semi off road would be a good compromise.

have a great trip!

thanks guys for tips. I have just ordered continental tkc80.
I was thinking also about suggested K60 heidi but there is not such tyre for 17 inch front wheel, only rear. I prefer to have same grip on front and rear.
Anyway my bike should look something like this one :thumbup1:

http://roa.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/14/47/...mg_8803-lg.jpg

Cool choice robbson - well done!
Did'n know about your 17" front weel - sorry for that.doh
But meanwhile you've got plenty of good advises.

Well ja no fine: Get going and enjoy:mchappy:

Cheers Silvio