Dunlop And Metzeler Cheater Tires

Dunlop and Metzeler cheater tires

CYCLE WORLD EVALUATION

What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago motocross riders were happy if their tires were round and black and had bumps on them. When the tires were slick, it was time for a new one. Sure, there were a few competitors who knew tires weren’t all the same. Mostly they mounted Metzelers on their bikes, and they did have an advantage on the competition.

Life is not so simple for the motocross racer today. There are tires for hard terrain, tires for sand or mud and tires for those in-between conditions. Add in more tire sizes, plus metric and inch measurements and you’ve got more choices than a puppy in a fire hydrant factory.

Not only do you get to pick what tires you need for the conditions, but you need to decide when to switch tires. It’s not unusual for a racer to use a mud tire for practice, when the track is wet, then use an intermediate tire for the first moto and a hardtrack tire for the last moto. One race and our hypothetical rider has used three sets of tires.

Of all the possible conditions, the toughest for most racers are mud and sand. Of course mud and sand are always changing, but we’ve found two recently introduced tires that work great. They make mud and sand riding almost easy.

DUNLOP K690A

Dunlop’s new mud and sand K690A is available only as a 4.00-18 ($52.91 list price) or 5.10-18 ($64.87) rear tire. It’s obviously different from the other Dunlop knobbies with its alternating rows of knobs arranged like paddles. That’s the secret to this tire’s grip in mud. There are such large gaps between the rows of knobs that even the softest goo is thrown off the extralong knobs.

Just leaving lots of room between the knobs isn’t enough to make a secret weapon in mud. Those knobs must be strong enough not to bend and fold over or be ripped off. At the same time they can’t be too hard or there won’t be enough traction on harder parts of the track. The right compromise takes lots of testing and experimenting to find, but Dunlop appears to have found an excellent answer.

When the going gets so

muddy you’d rather be home watching a golf game on TV, the 690 Dunlops are a legal way to cheat. When riding in real gooey mud, the tire sticks so well you’ll have to be careful you don’t lap second place. The tread pattern doesn't hold mud, even the sticky kind. The 690A also works well in sand. When the track dries and starts to get hard, the Dunlops don’t work as well as the Metzeler Perfect-Cross Soft Terrain tires.

METZELER PERFECT-CROSS SOFT TERRAIN

Originally, Metzeler created the Perfect-Cross as a mud and sand tire. It has alternating rows of three knobs extending to opposite sides of the tire. The Metzeler doesn’t have such large open areas as the Dunlop, and it doesn’t work quite as well on the worst goo. It gets something back when the track starts to harden. Then the Metzelers work better than the Dunlops.

Metzeler is introducing another line of Perfect-Cross tires, these will be the Hard Terrain models. The tread pattern will be the same, but the knobs are shorter and the compound is softer. The three-ply carcass remains the same on the hard and soft compounds.

Perfect-Cross tires are available in a 3.00-21 ($55.03) and a range of 18 in.

rear sizes, from a 4.60-18 for the 125s to a 140/80-18 for open-class bikes. Our test 5.10-18 carries a list price of $80.51.

CONCLUSION

Mud and sand are what the Dunlop 690A and Metzeler Perfect-Cross were designed for. If a track is hard or rocky, these aren’t the answer, but if a track looks like it’s covered with a foot of axle grease, you’d kill for these. Without them, it won’t be any surprise why someone else pulled a 10-bike length lead on you in that muddy, uphill starting area. He had a Dunlop 690A or Metzeler Perfect-Cross tire. ra