Happy to report I have made it from San Diego, CA. to Kiev Ukraine via : US, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Boznia-Herznegovina, Serbia, Romania, Moldavia, and Ukraine on my humble, albeit imminently capable, 2018 DRZ 400 SM. I got a new back tire in Sarajevo...150/60 Mita.. works great. Have encountered maybe a couple hundred miles of gravel pavement, a lot of wet roads, some mud, etc. So far so good. Having a great time. No serious challenges thus far. Lost a few times, soaking wet a couple, bike tipped over once or twice from the luggage load but nothing dramatic. Made a lot of friends along the way. I was able to get in some rock climbing in Rodellar spain, and did a road bike climb up the alp d'huez....both intense but not too bad overall. Spent good beach time in Spain, Italy, Croatia, and Ukraine (where there are so many gorgeous women I was apoplectic).

I now have a bigger issue. I had my first real discussion with a Russian guy who knows the Road of Bones area very well in far eastern Siberia. My immediate problem is that I have street tires on this thing and need to get dirt tires on it. I can get to novosibirsk russia on what I have but from there I head south into Mongolia, and then back north to Yakutsk. I do hit these russian cities in route: Volgograd, Omsk, Chelyabinks, and anything along that road. There is a company here that can ship tires to most places in russia so I can get the tires if I can figure out which ones, rims? not so sure: MOTOREZINA.RU - свежая моторезина по разумным ценам. motokolesa, мотоколеса, моторезина, резина для мотоциклов

the real issue on the Road of Bones is likely to be mud and potentially lots of it (forgetting the river crossings which I think I have covered).

So my question is this: I'm on the stock 17" rims. Can anyone suggest a known 50/50 dirt/road tire that can get me from novosibirsk into the road of bones area, and then maybe another pure dirt tire with an emphasis on mud for the road of bones itself?

If thats not the case, I think I can make that decision easier by going to 19" rims? If I do that what tire would you recommend in 19"?

finally it appears that I can swap in an S or E rim into a DRZ SM directly. I think I might have a hard time finding a suzuki dealer in Novosibirsk, what is the effort to swap in a 'generic' 19" dirt bike rim front and back? If I got a cheap 19" rim off of a yamaha for example how could I swap that out? I'm thinking I need to respoke it? Or am I lucky and there is some kind of standard in 19" dirt bike rims?


lemme know your thoughts and any ideas I may have missed.

Fred



ps you can find me on instagram and see a ton of photos under Fred Covely or fcovely

This is an old post, so I suspect you have either solved your dilemma or moved on. However, if not you should know that switching to a 19" or 21" front rim will give you lots of options for dirt tires. Probably the easiest solution is to just get a whole 21" rim of the DRZ400 S or E dirt models - should bolt right on and will be the best choice for handling gravel/ mud, etc. It requires minimum fussing around, and should be relatively easy to source. I believe the brakes are different on the S and E models but a quick google search of this conversion indicates that it is pretty straight forward.

alternatively Procycle in the US has a 19" front option. https://procycle.us/bikepages/drz400.html#wheels