XT600 Supermoto wheels
 

Hello all, I have recently purchased a 1992 XT600 love it to bits and have been doing lots of little bits and pieces to it.
The next thing on my list is a set of supermoto wheels. Does anyone know if any other bikes wheels are a fit (with spacers to be made of cause). Or where I can purchase a set (not breaking the bank)
All threads I have found are people relacing their hubs onto new rims?? Is this the only option?
Cheers looking forward to the information as I am stuck.

Nothing is a straight swap.
Some fit a whole front end from like a WR or something, and make modifications to fit a simular rear wheel aswell. But its rare they come with Sm wheels. Using parts from other bikes will also render the speedometer useless.

A used set of hubs, and buying spokes and rims, and putting the whole thing together yourself is about the cheapest way, short of a second hand set, which is rare.

I was lucky to buy a set that needed some tlc, and love it to bits.
http://www.tenere.dk/forumnew/uploads/987/tarded.jpg

I dont know if you really need motard rims to get there, when i bought my bike it had 150 or 160 rear tire on the original rim.

That's a very cool looking stand you've got there Jens. How does the lifting mechanism work?

Just step down the arm you see on the side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=areEB8osEeo

The point with the wide rims is, just like on streetbikes, to get more rubber on the road. On a narrow rim like the xt, the tire will be squized more together, making a sharp/pointy profile.(kinda the opposite of a car tire) Especially with a 160 tire which is way to big for this size of rim.

With a wider rim, you get a wider, rounder profile. I run 150 in size on a 4.25" rim, stock rear rim is 2,50"
Here is some random pictures, found online, just to illustrate this.

Narrow rim, wide tire:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/articles/i...ss_section.jpg

Wider rim, look how the tire "opens up" and you get much,much more rubber in contact with the tarmac
http://www.mgexp.com/article/images/...ss-section.jpg


On top of that, the steering is quicker with the smaller front wheel, and the bike feels more flickable (is that a word??)
Some say (said like Jeremy Clarckson) that it looks cool aswell, but each to his own.

A big tire is better for straight riding, but it will slow down handling. Its not about having most wide tire on the ground for better handling, narrow tire gives you qicker handling and fuel consumption too. I think the reason they started using the 17inch rim is because of tire choice from race bikes, suddenly you can use a slick tire on a offroad bike with best grip. And yes 140 is max i would use on the original rim, wider it may pop off the rim.

Jens, that is the exact look I am going for, I may have to build the wheels myself think it's the only possible way thanx for the info

A 150 tire wont pop of a stock rim. It will just cause the handling to be worse, and less rubber on the road because of the profile.

Yes, a narrower tire is more flickable than a bigger one, for this very reason, i only run a 110 front on my 17s.
But saying a smaller tire on a 21" rim is better than 17s on sm rims is BS.
It doesnt help if theres no rubber on the side of the tire after you "flicked" the bike :innocent:

As i said, the 17" front makes the bike much more flickable, and the front tires are usually only 110 or 120 in width, with a much smaller profile, usually around 60-70. With a smaller diameter comes less centrifugal force = better steering. With the smaller front, you have more weight towards the front aswell. It will handle way better than a 21" rim with a 90/90 street-tire. It really sounds like you havent tried this...

Racebike dont run narrow tires, or bigger diamteer rims. A YZF R1 runs a 190 tire in the rear. But surely they would want more topspeed and better handling. Im sorry, but I think you'll be laughed at for saying that at a racetrack.

I get better milage with the Sm wheels, as the whole bike sits lower, and have less drag. But economy shoyld get you into this, a new set of rims is pretty expensive. So if you run smaller diameter tires, to save on gas, this isnt for you.

Sm bikes emerged in the 70's in an attempt to get streetriders, dirtriders and MX guys to compete against each other. They were actually called Superbikers back then.

Anyway, to sum it up:

A 110/70x17 will outhandle, and outride, a 90/90x21 on the street any day of the week. Theres no point in talking back and forth, if you really disagree on this.

OMG calm down man, never said the 21 is better...Iam talking about tires in general, some people seem to think the wider the better, thats not the case on street bikes.

totally agree on width being over rated. i built mine with TZR125 rims and run 110 front 140 rear supersport racing tires. bikes handles beautiful and on top, on these rims I can fit moto3 slicks if i ever wanted to lean even further.

the modern supermotos might have 160 rears but they also have 60-70hp to load the tire, you will never bring a 160 rear to proper working temperature on an xt600.

read here:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...upermoto-62806

agree that the look is not that classy, but i built this bike to have fun on track, not put in my lving room to look at :)

Its a old XT600, it will never be a SM bike! If people wants to spend big cash on rims and tires go ahead, you still wont even come close to a SM bike from KTM or Husqvarna. My advice is sell the XT and buy a real SM bike, it has the engine, the brakes and the frame/suspension for fun riding!

Sounds like we all agree then..

Wr250x runs around 110 front and 140 rear, it cant use up a 150 on the rear.

I have no trouble spending money on my bike, as its taken good care over me in the 9 years I've had it.

A husqvarna 701 sm is 5 times more expensive than what i bought my xt600 (secondhand) for beacuse of the danish taxes.

I put a 150/70/18 on the rear of mine(4.25" rim), and went with a 19" x3.5 front and a 110 tire to get close to SM look and handling but kept the bike from getting too twitchy(responsive?). The 150 is definitely too big for the bike even with a motor putting out considerably more than stock . Can really feel the resistance at 90+mph .




.

Are you really sure you can feel the difference between a 150 and 140 tire?
Its almost not possible to meassure the difference in hp. Theres 140 tires weighing more than some 150s, and the other way around. At 90, theres just not that much left.

Anyway, i use up my 150, so 140 would lack cornering grip for me.

I think mine is a 150/60, so pretty low profile.

Try get your knee down in the corner with this:mchappy: http://i64.tinypic.com/i5n5mu.jpg

Yeah, ehmn....You dont scrape knees on a Sm bike, but nice try.
http://www.tenere.dk/forumnew/uploads/987/sm_vs_sb.png

Werent YOU the one saying that you thought there was no need for sm-rims, cause you had 150 or 160 tire on stock rim.... Someone has double standards.. :oops2:

And I said that too wide tires on a narrow rim would be bad. I never said anything about bigger is better, in fact i stated that I only run a 110 front because of better handling, and that you cant use up a 120 with my setup anyway.

Go read the thread again.... Better even, start a new one so the OP doesnt have to read al this crap in his thread. Then you have all the space in the world to talk about tires popping of the rim, and post random pictures from the interweb for gods know what reason.

Have a nice day, even if you disagree.

He says he want Sm wheels, you say:
Thats not telling him he dosnt need it? Then I missed the point, what was it then?

The OP tells you how much he loves his bike, and he want a SM conversion without breaking the bank, and you are still talking about oversized tires on stock rims? How on earth are you gonna get a Sm-look with a skinny 21" front rim? As for the sizes, have a look yourself. Its not something I just made up:
https://ridewrightwheels.com/pages/m...-fitment-chart


Im not gonna comment further than this on your hate on Denmark, we covered that well in another thread. Im pretty sure wheelies are just as fun in Denmark as in other places, I should know, I've done'em in 20 countries on my Xt.
Thers plenty of places to ride if you want rugged terrain. I help as a track marshall in the danish enduroraces. Plenty of hillclims.

Theres also more than 1400 different islands, you can even ride on the beach to some of them at shallow waters, no need for brigdes or ferries.

We have about 9000km of coastline, so plenty of pretty places. No place in Denmark is more than 52km away from the ocean, thats kinda amazing. Its actually hard to map our country, as the coastline varies up to 10km depending on the tide. Theres more to awesome places than altitude. Turism in Denmark is growing steadily, so other people seem to realise this aswell. They're certainly not here because its cheap, cause its not.

Anyways Its still allowed to cross the boarder and go out and see places. The Sm rims felt fine at the track of Nürburgring aswell. And in Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France. And yeah I enjoyed my moped there aswelll :scooter:

I sincerely hopy you enjoy your bike as much as i love mine

I have a front wheel hub for sale. Just the brake disc bolt threads are damaged, so you would need to fix that (or re-drill and thread new holes, and fill the old ones).
Throw me an offer if you're interested.

Hey, sorry for bringing this old thread back to life.
I'm looking to build 17" wheels for my XT 600 Tenere 34L.
I'm thinking of getting a set of 3.5"*17" front and 4.25"*17" rear.

My question tho, is where to get spokes? I've found several calculators to get the length, but it's the bends I'm a bit worried about.

Edit: One thing I've thought about, don't know if it's immensely stupid tho, could you shorten and re-thread the original spokes?

I got mine from these people - https://www.central-wheel.co.uk/. They knew their stuff, knew what bends & lengths I would need and delivered a great set of front spokes.

no you cant, these are rolled threads, not cut into the metal with a die.

Roger, realized that after some googling. Looks like central-wheel have or makes what I need, and prices seem ok. Many thanks!

central wheel did rims and spokes for two british bikes restorations of mine, highly recommended