Cycle World Evaluation

CYCLE WORLD EVALUATION

Swallow Off Road Tires

when the Swallow tire press release got to our office, we all had a big laugh. Swallow tires? What kind of name is Swallow? "Maybe you swallow hard entering the first turn when equipped with

Swallow tires," someone suggested. A couple of weeks passed and then the Swallow tire rep dropped by for a visit, carrying a couple Swallow knobbies. "Give them a try and let me know how they work. They're good tires for the price. I think you'll be suprised," he said. "Sure", we thought, "they even look wrong. No tire with a round profile could work well off-road." We threw the two, a 5.00-17 and 5.10-18 into the tire rack and almost forgot about them. One Saturday evening while searching for a new Dunlop for the back of our XR500R, we stumbled across the Swallows. And we had used all the Dunlops and failed to reorder. Hmm. We had two choices; mount the 5.00-17 Swallow or ride a hundred miles with a worn

Dunlop. We reluctantly mounted the Swallow. We changed our opinion of the Swallow 10 minutes into the ride. It didn't slide around in turns, got excellent trac tion in the straights and stopped well. After a 100 miles of sandy trails, rock hills and wide-open sand washes, we still couldn't find much wrong with the Swal low knobbie. It slid a little more in hard-pack turns than a $90 tire, but it never cornpletely let go. It was always predictable and showed little wear. The tire lasted through another trip to the Mojave Desert and two trips through the wilds of Baja (750 miles total) before it was replaced with another Swallow. We're impressed. The high desert was dry both rides, Baja was muddy and slimy both trips. Looking at the tire's specs, there isn't anything special. It has a four-ply rated nylon casing, large, deep knobs, rim-saver bead design and a Dunlop K190 tread design (square dimples in the knobs). But the important thing is the performance and long life, regardless of the specs. Even more important is the extremely resonable price; the 5.00-17 has a suggested retail price of $40. No, it's not a misprint, $40. Swallow sells dealer direct to keep the price low.

Swallow has a complete line of off-road tires sizes: 3.60-14, 4.10-14, 4.50-17, 5.00-17, 2.50-18, 3.50-18, 4.10-18, 4.60-18, 5.10-18, 3.00-21 and 3.50-2 1. All priced refreshing low. So forget the funny name and pay no attention to your buddies as they laugh, you'll have the last laugh.