Picking the best type of tire for your dual sport/enduro bike can seem overwhelming with all the different options. Rest assured, for any type of riding you do, there's a tire for everyone. Dual sport tires are organized by the majority of riding they'll be used for. So whether you're riding mostly hard off road, with a little pavement between, or adventure riding racking up pavement miles and exploring fire roads, we’ll help you with choosing the best dual sport tires!
50/50 enduro tires are the most versatile tires to put on your dual sport machine. They can do a little bit of everything, don't tend to excel at any particular kind of riding, but give sufficient traction on a range of surfaces. They're a balanced, best of both worlds option. They give you a decent amount of tire life, but still have decent traction for the difficult situations we get ourselves into, offering a wide range of riding potential.
The Shinko 244 is one of the most popular and affordable 50/50 dual purpose tires to throw on your enduro. Good tread wear, great road grip, and decent dirt traction. Little to no high speed wobble makes it a great tire for freeway rides to your favorite trails. The only area we’ve had the tire disappoint, is in loose terrain, such as leaves or pine needles. Which is to be expected from any tire with close spacing between tread blocks.
The Mitas E-07+ are great 50/50 dual sport motorcycle tires, and have great road grip. Unlike the Shinko, it has a lot of spacing between the tread lugs which gives it way more performance in loose muddy situations. We also love the style of the tread on this enduro tire. The tread pattern looks aggressive, giving it a cool off-road capable look.
The Kenda K270 dual sport tires are another excellent option. They are meant for 50/50 road/off-road use, making them a great replacement for OEM tires. Their rubber compound and tread design gives extra off-road traction while still being acceptable for street use, a being DOT approved tire.
60/40 enduro tires lean a little more towards off road performance than a 50/50 dual purpose tire. These tires are great for someone who still has a lot of road riding to the trails, but has a bit more difficult off road riding to do.
The Shinko 700 series dual sport tire will perform well off road and on road. It gives a bit more off road grip for enduro riding, without sacrificing too much pavement performance. This tire has an aggressive tread pattern, utilizing deep tread lugs, increasing off road grip. They feature a somewhat unique tread design too, giving your bike a cool look.
The Continental TKC80 is a great DOT approved dual sport tire. The wide block tread pattern helps this tire maintain good self cleaning properties. These are the OEM tires for many BMW and KTM enduro models, which says enough by itself. They can be used with a tube, or run tubeless.
80/20 Dual Sport tires are for enduro riders that spend most of their time riding on roads, with smooth gravel roads now and then. These tires offer exceptional on road grip, and pavement tire life and longevity. This does however come at a cost of off road performance, 80/20 enduro tires are best kept on smooth gravel roads,best to avoid gnarly trails and loose technical terrain. They do however, last a long time and excel in on road cornering stability. 80/20 tires also tend to have a higher speed rating.
The TKC 70 is a great enduro tire for your dual sport, exceptionally quiet and comfortable on the road, great wet conditions performance, and aggressive siping. This tire is great for bigger heavier dual sports. Heavier enduros aren’t really the greatest for harcore off road anyways, so enjoying the extra comfort and lifespan of this 80/20 tire makes it perfect for longer mile pounding adventure rides.
The Shinko 705 is a great 80/20 enduro tire, sporting a tread pattern and rubber compound that performs well on wet and dry road grip. The large block of tread give it maximum road contact, but still enough spacing between to retain some decent of road performance. Best of all, it is an affordable budget friendly tire, offering acceptable braking and traction performance.
90/10 enduro tires are for the dual sport rider that does mostly off road riding, lots of technical riding, but still needs street legality to get between riding spots. These tires are very aggressive, usually simply a dirt knobby with shorter knobs, to be DOT Approved. Our choice tire is the Kenda K-760 Trakmaster.
The Kenda is a great 90/10 tire as it is pretty much a full dirt knobby, but with dot approval to keep the street legality, which is the whole point of owning a dual sport motorcycle. Strong 6 ply construction makes for a durable enduro tire, ready to tackle the most demanding off road terrain.
The Dunlop D606 is probably the most popular barely legal dual sport tire out there, tried and true, Dakkar Proven, rally racing performance at it’s best. This is a great tire for the guys out there doing hard enduro, nasty single track, on an enduro motorcycle. With the DOT approval, they are street legal, so you can jump on-road from trail to trial. The aggressive knob deep tread depth gives the D606 serious off road performance. The trail riding abilities of this tire is superb, we love the tread patterns of the D606 tires.
A dual sport motorcycle is a dirt bike that can be rode both off-road and on-road. Dual sports have all the equipment needed for registration, such as lights, blinkers, mirrors, and mufflers. Unlike their road going cousins, Enduros sport much longer travel suspension, lower gearing, and are usually much lighter. Dual sport motorcycles also tend to use substantially larger front and rear tires, for going over ruts and rough terrain. Typical front tire sizes tend to be 21” and rear tire sizes 17-19” . A nice dual sport with a nice muffler wheelieing through an intersection, is the pinnacle of an obnoxiously DOPE motorcycle.
Tire replacement should be when either grip performance is lacking from wear, tread depth is under the manufacturer minimum specs. For more aggressive off-road tires, watch the angle of the knobs in relation to the tire circumference. Tires need to “hook”, new tires have 90 or more of angle, as they wear this angle decreases, with the tire losing grip, or “bite” in loose terrain. (non directional knobby type tires can be swapped around, giving you a new leading edge for better grip). Note, this is most useful to the rear tire.
On bigger displacement enduros doing more highway speeds, it is very recommended to balance tires, for one you have less vibration, minimizing road fatigue, and two this helps prolong wheel bearing life(which are no fun to change on heavy adventure dual sports). On smaller, say under 500cc enduros, it's either way. Smaller dual sports don't like highway speeds anyways, and most users of these bikes do more off road riding anyways. Our opinion depends on the type of riding you do. More highway, balance, more slow off road, save time and money.
