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The trials tire is awesome and sticks to everything. I don’t encounter much mud, which that’s the one area it lacks in, but it’s still fine after some rainfall on our harder packed western mountain trails. I also got rid of a traditional tube in the tire and went with a mousse bib. No more worrying about flat tires and it’s great piece of mind when coming out late after dark and the last thing you’d wanna do is change a flat in the dark.
QUESTIONS for you about those mousse bib's:
I was always curious how much those mousse bib's would affect how the bike handles.
Such as flickability in the tight stuff?
And also maybe knifing her hard into a turn I figure more rotating mass like that would provide more fight against the handlebars to invoke the turning when at speed.
How would it affect blasting along on some rocky sand-whoops in Victorville? The mousse bib.... what pressure of regular inner-tube is it's ride supposed to be mimicking? As usually I liked em pretty low so it could hook-up best as possible in the sand-washes you'd encounter in Gorman.
Oh Hey! Just thought of something! When running a mousse bib.... do you even need to use a RimLock anymore? Since there'd be no valve stem to shear off? Asking cause lotta DualSports don't come with RimLocks on em from the showrooom floor. I always had to order them after purchase.
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Since a lotta folks didn't used to hardly ever even ride em all that much in the dirt. But I think that's changing more nowadays. And.. at Fwy speeds a RimLock will give ya some front-end shaking from the front wheel not being balanced once that RimLock is installed. To help a little you can put adhesive lead-weights on opposing side to try to counter-balance the weight of the RimLock throwing off balance.
But if you're mostly enjoying riding it in the dirt primarily, and street secondarily/occasionally... then don't even bother trying to counter-balance the RimLock, you won't notice that hardly at all in the dirt. Just because you're mostly bombing along trails chocked full of endless whoops anyway.
Oh and also for that DualSport, yank the goofy rubber footpeg inserts they sometimes have on the pegs to tame-down buzz thru the pegs at Fwy Speeds. You need that bite into the boots sole more instead out in the Desert. And then like once you have a fall or two, or smack a rock a bit and bend the stock footpegs.... that's when... it's good to think about upgrading to some WIDE aggressive spring-loaded footpegs. Helps to prevent having as much foot strain/stresses too like when hammering whoops or landing from jumps, since more surface area under the boot to spread around the force of the landing.
If it's a kickstart bike, with aftermarket WIDE pegs ya might have to grind off one or two teeth of the forward inside most area of the peg, so the kick lever can clear enough of the peg to achieve a full kick downward, otherwise you could snap a kickstarter lever if it's prematurely smacking into that peg on the way down. THAT is something you DO NOT want to have happen to you in the field! Have the freakin' kick-lever snap! Especially when I had that KX500! Thing was a Beast to kick over, especially since she was so tall! (We're soo spoiled these days with push-button starts on dirtbikes! I started on Husqvarna's where they kicked on the LeftHandSide of the bike and you had to dismount them, pull out kick-lever, and then perform a back-kick from standing, two fingers on the front brake to help hold her steady while you're kicking it over. When they were warmed up good, you could perform that kickstart from seated on the bike, with your non-dominant leg, because it would fire-up soo easily after being warmed up. You also learned to get good at bump-starting your bike if you happened to kill-it whilst braking downhill, like maybe ya panic braked and didn't quite get the clutch pulled-in before you hit the rear brake, or something like that. Since you're already proceeding downhill, ya just make sure you're in a gear that's not to low and let out the clutch while simultaneously kind landing butt back on the seat for a sec to weight the rear wheel a lil bit to help it bite into the soft stuff so it'll kick-over, rather than have compression-braking from the resistance of the compression stroke of the piston be stiff enough to disallow the rear knobbies to grab enough to overcome, without some help from the rider, from skidding thru the soft stuff and back-end wanna possibly side-swap a lil bit. Usually not an issue, but if the trail is a particularly narrow goat-trial type of line, where it's hardpack but with loose grit over it. You're gonna want that seat bump just to make sure the back end grabs right the first time and dumping the clutch let's it turn over the engine, easily firing it back up without skipping a beat. Very important the quick recovery on goat-trails, cause sometimes you need to be accelerating on the way down into a draw, to ensure you'll have the momentum needed and speed to make the climb and continue back up on the other side of that draw, especially if there's some kinda bad spot in the middle of that uphill line you're approaching. Like maybe ya gotta try to hard-cross a rut at some point, better to be carrying more speed so you can loft the front end, and clear it cleanly.
be safe and good luck
the trail I ride is memorized with every little root rock and off camber…still makes me pucker in the dark….wish I took pics of all the bulls packed out on it….always slow and steady tap if needed otherwise staying on pegs and grinding it out….saved the body a crazy amount of heavy walking…
