tires, need some help!

Dunlop 739 in the rear and a 752 or 756 up front, I don't remember which one I'll have to check. Dual sport tire suck on everything except the pavement. The 739's aren't great in the mud, but nothing that will take occasional pavement is. Just keep that tire spinning to throw the mud out of the knobs.

The 739 is Dunlop's hard terrain tire. It works well on dirt roads, but I take it on pavement quite a bit and haven't seen any rapid wear as a result (this is behind a Yamaha TT225 which won't spin the tire but I do lock up a lot). I have tried running the 739 on a front tire and don't like it much at all. The front end washes out too easily. I recently started using a D742 on the front of my CR250. This tire turns so hard in soft, loamy soil that it will put you over the bars. It works every bit as well as the 739 on hard surfaces, works ok in mud, and doesn't seem to wear too quickly on pavement. The 739 works well on wet pavement, but the 742 is alittle sketchy so slow down. I was running D756 on the rear of the CR because it seems to handle a wider range of conditions, but it feels like I loose 1/8th of an inch of tread every mile on pavement. I take what I can get for free, currently I'm running a Michelin M-12 and don't like it. It hooks up better under acceleration, but doesn't corner as well and is wearing much faster.

For price, they cost the same as everybody else. I usually see Dunlop rear tires go for $65-$70 and fronts for ~$55 in a walk-in store.

You'll have to find a metric size that is close. 18 and 21 inch rim sizes are standard. I think the standard 80/100R21 and 100/100R18 will be a close fit.

What is your rim width, it should be stamped on it somewhere? The 100/100-18 is for a 1.85" wide rim, the 110 and larger fit the 2.15" rims. A 100 tire is going to be about 4 inches wide vs 3.5, if you have an extra .25" on either side of the tire, you should be good to go.

If the 100's don't fit, Cheng Shin still sells tires with standard sizes instead of metric. I really hate their tires, though. It's like they're made out of ice and they chunk really easily. They're cheap at $20 a piece.

My Cheng Shin rear tire is great for fuel savings. You don't dare give it any gas in any type of turn or your rear end slides out from under you! I'll bet I've saved $2 in gas since I wasted $35 for this tire!!! I'm going back to Bridgestone or Dunlop this summer.

schmanman:

My first recommendation is to get the tire size off the bike, not off a website. You are a talking about a 30 year old bike, it is possible that someone has changed rim sizes during that time. It should be sufficient to simply get the size off the old tires, which should be in bold letters on the sidewall.

Is this a street legal bike? If it is street legal, and you want it to actually be legal when riding on the street, then you need a street legal (DOT approved) tire. Which means they are going to suck for off road. Street tires will have a very tight tread pattern which will really suck in the mud.

To deal with mud you want a really open tread, a really major "knobby" that has big gaps between the knobs. This open tread allows the mud to fall off instead of getting packed in tight. While a deeper knob will bite a little better a deeper tread needs to be even more open in order to avoid the mud packing problem. Such an open tread pattern is not good for hard pack and a rock can easily get between the tread and puncture the tire.

To see what I am talking about, look at the Dunlop web site:
http://www.dunlopmotorcycle.com/tirecatalog_category.asp?id=4

Compare the D773 to the D739. See how much gap there is between each set of knobs on the D773? Great for mud, but on a hard pack it would feel like you were on a washboard, even when the road was smooth.

Any kind of knobby is going to get torn up on pavement, avoid the asphalt as much as possible. Crossing a street won't be a problem, and you can even get away with short runs down the road, but be thinking that you are going to ride the street to/from home type of thing.

As far as your birthday, you are in luck! The tires should be well under $300, mounted and everything. I would expect it to be under $200 mounted and the the old tires disposed of. Last year I bought a pair of Dunlop D739 tires online for about $140, including shipping.

Changing a tire on a dirt bike isn't that hard but you do need a few decent tire irons and if you don't do it right you will pinch the tube. If you expect to be doing it a bunch it is worth buying the tools and learning how. If you don't expect to do it a lot you would be money ahead to just pay to have the tires mounted for you.

Rod