How dangerous are knobby tires on pavement or “twisties”?
Would you recommend changing to “normal” or even “less knobby” tires for everyday driving? (To increase road-grip and maybe reduce noise/vibration?)
When you said you’d have to “re-learn how to ride”, what did you really mean? (Does that mean I’m a good rider who figured it out right away, or a very lucky bastard who didn’t think it was much different than other bikes)?
Thanks, Mordeth![/quote]
Knobby tires aren’t made for pavement…sounds like Sat TV does alright on them, but that’s probably his good riding skills overcoming the disadvantage of the tires. I think (could be wrong) supermoto has race tires and enduro has knobby. Here is a link that compares what is mostly the same bike…but the SM is made for pavement and the E is more for off road…errr…I guess SM is supermoto…and E is enduro…duhh… motorbikes.be/en/compare/4629/4113/
see above
Supposedly if you lean an enduro or supermoto into a corner like you would on a sports bike the bike will wobble. You need to stay upright or possibly lean the opposite direction? You’ll notice in that video no one leans into the corners like they would on a sports bike. That’s mainly what I meant…but hopefully motorbikerider will come in and enlighten us all…since he just switched from a full on sports bike to a supermoto…or motard…whatever it’s called.
Welcome.
I think as far as “fun-factor” goes…you need to look at the torque not horses. Torque is something you can actually feel…horses you can only measure. And the 50 hp cruisers have torque comparable to 120 hp sports bikes.
The thing you need to remember with horsepower is that a shit load is needed just to increase the top speed marginally. For example…20hp will get a certain bike up to 100km/hr, but if you give that same bike 40hp it won’t reach 200km/hr…probably closer to 150…you might need 60hp to reach 200km/hr (very very rough estimate…). And from there it would get worse…needing much more horses for only a slightly higher top speed.
And since the cruisers are geared for a very low top speed they can use their horses to accelerate very respectably. And pull very hard while doing so.
[quote=“coolingtower”]Recently I’ve noticed that newspapers in Taiwan refer to ANY bike over 250cc as being a “Ha Lei Ji Che”, which is the Chinese translation of “Harley Davidson Motorcycle”. They should be saying “Zhong Xing Ji Che”, or “heavy-type motorcycle”.[/quote]Trouble is, “Zhong Xing Ji Che” is already in standard use meaning anything bigger than 50cc!
[quote=“coolingtower”]Mordeth’s idea of supermoto is a good one, and he’s not alone
Questions for Mordeth:
How dangerous are knobby tires on pavement or “twisties”?[/quote]Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t supermotos like enduro bikes but with street tyres? Look at the ones in Mungacious’s video links:
[Four wheels bad, two wheels good?
But if you really want to ride a bike with knobbly tyres on the road then yes it’s certainly possible. I don’t like the feel-- feels kind of squirmy and not enough feedback-- but my brother managed to ride a 250 dirt bike with knobblies faster round corners than I rode a 400 street bike.
[quote=“Mordeth”]3. Supposedly if you lean an enduro or supermoto into a corner like you would on a sports bike the bike will wobble. You need to stay upright or possibly lean the opposite direction?[/quote]Of course they lean and no, not in the opposite direction!!! Just not as much as on a sport bike.
A quick correction on Mordeth’s comment that Enduro bikes use knobby tires. Enduro bikes can use them but an actual “Enduro style” tire exists that is more commonly used on Enduros…They are good for on road and mild offroading.
I hear you. But in the above posted video ( video.bikepics.com/wmv-416-96/Co … -78sec.wmv ) if you go about 20 seconds in you’ll see when they take corners they sit bolt upright…not leaning at all. If they do lean…it almost looks like it’s in the opposite direction.
Different than other bikes? To me, it wasn’t really all that different. With Mordeth’s very “fong fu” experience, I feel strange that SatelliteTV’s bike didn’t seem all that different to me from other bikes I have ridden. I said “that’s true” to mean that a few things felt different at first, but to me that was “getting familiar with it” and not to the extent of “learning how to ride again”.
I guess I meant that either: #1 I became familiar with SatelliteTV’s supermoto in such a short time that it means that I’m a good rider (or most likely a very pussily safe one ), or #2 There are a lot of things I should have known, but didn’t and got lucky that I didn’t crash.
To me, the big difference was not in riding, but in parking and mounting. I am 182cm tall and about 95Kg. The seat is so high that when I get on the bike I actually have to crunch the suspension down a little in order to get both feet flat on the ground. There were a couple of times we stopped to take pictures and the road leaned downhill to the right slighly. I had to push on my toes to let the suspension up enough to get the kickstand down and then carefully dismount to the right side to make sure that I wouldn’t spill the bike on its right side. In retrospect, for mounting I should have put the kickstand up first and leaned the bike toward me in order to mount it. Oh, well. (To make matters worse, I wore white shorts and SatelliteTV’s bike had cracks in the seat from the sun. After sitting, it squeezed ugly yellow water out and he kept teasing me that I had pissed myself. Dammit! )
I wiped out really bad leaning into a turn on a bicycle when I was about 10. After that, I have always been paranoid of taking turns too quickly on anything with two wheels. I personally felt that I drove crazily in the mountains and leaned into turns, etc. One day, I went around my favorite curve as fast as I dared to go and got a friend to take a picture of me. I wasn’t even close to scraping a peg or dragging anything. I love motorcycles of all kinds and I love twisty mountain roads as much as anyone else here. I guess I just can’t force myself to go beyond certain limits. In a way, I wish I could.
In order to save this thread from being off-topic, I would like to hear more specifics about how Mordeth’s list of different bike types feel in comparison to a supermoto. I said before that I had become interested in supermoto bikes even before reading Mordeth’s post, however, I really want to know what to expect if I am to ride a supermoto close to any “limits”. Also, someone please discuss how safe it is to take curves with knobby tires.
Actually the E in the DR-400E doesn’t really mean enduro. The E is actually a MX/Dirt bike, and has different carbs than the S and SM model. The S model means street, but actually has enduro tires and fork covers on them. The SM stands for Supermoto, but is the real street bike version of the DR-Z series. Ducati is coming out with a enduro slash supermoto bike.
[quote=“MotorcycleRider”]Actually the E in the DR-400E doesn’t really mean enduro. The E is actually a MX/Dirt bike, and has different carbs than the S and SM model. The S model means street, but actually has enduro tires and fork covers on them. The SM stands for Supermoto, but is the real street bike version of the DR-Z series. Ducati is coming out with a enduro slash supermoto bike.
I’m unsure of the different terms for dirt/dual-purpose bikes. I think I know what a supermoto is now (like a big dirt bike but with street tyres and some other changes?) but I’m not sure of the exact definition of an “enduro”. What category does a Hondo Baja 250 fall into? (High seat, kick-start only). Is a Yamaha XT225 (lower seat, has a battery and is more road-friendly) in a different category?
[quote=“coolingtower”]Also, someone please discuss how safe it is to take curves with knobby tires.[/quote]It’s safe enough if you don’t push it too much.
MX = Pure dirt bikes that are not street legal and that use knobby tires. (ex. Honda CRF450, Kawasaki KX450, Suzuki RM450) CRF450
Enduro= Touring/trail bikes that have suspensions and engine set-up for all terrains. They use enduro tires (less nobby, more road type tires). (ex. BMW GS1200, KTM Adventure) GS1200
Supermoto = Dirt bikes with street rims, sport bike tires, lights and blinkers on them. Basically a street version of a dirt bike. (ex. DR-Z400SM, Husabergs, KTM LC4, Hasvarqna 610SM) DRz400
Hypermotos = Basically a supermoto crossed with a sports bike. Riding position and physics more like a sports bike, than a dirt bike like with supermotos. (BMW HP2, Ducati Hypermoto)
So how about 250s and smaller? Can they still qualify as “supermotos”? How about the differences between the Baja 250 and XT225? They both have indicators, lights etc. but the Baja is more a pure dirt bike. Does that mean we use different terminology?
And is “dual-purpose” or “dual-sport” just another name for enduro?
There 250 supermotos. The XR250 from Honda has supermoto version. The Baja is a dirt bike. The XT is more a dual-purpose/trail bike. I think you are right, enduro probably is just another name for dual-purpose. The way I see, if you can hit the trails and still ride home on nromal roads afterwards then it’s an enduro. If you need to but the bike on a trailer then its a dirt bike.
I am not completely familiar with some of the bikes you guys have mentioned.
A few years ago (It was in Men’s Health magazine, of all places) I read about some guys who bought Kawasaki KLR-650s (single cylinder, 4-cycle dirtbikes but made for the road, too) and rode from Point Barrow, Alaska all the way down to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. They said they chose the single-cylinder bike because it was narrow enough to go through deep ruts, etc. that they might encounter.
Could those bikes have been “dual purpose” but now renamed “supermoto”? Does the term “supermoto” entail that it was fundamentally a dirt-bike with things added to make it street-legal, whereas a “dual-purpose” bike was already an original mix of bikes?
Maybe it’s a renaming thing. George Carlin said “In my lifetime, ‘sneakers’ became ‘running shoes’, ‘toilet paper’ became ‘bathroom tissue’”. The same renaming stuff has happened to me. When I lived in the US, “rap” was a kind of music and “hip hop” was a very old-fashioned '50s dance of some kind. Now, “rap” has been renamed “hip-hop” and “wrap” is a kind of FOOD! Actually that doesn’t surprise me. Go away from ANY place for 10 years and then go back and visit and they’ll have different words for things.
Keep this going–it’s fun, and we think we’re all learning about bikes, but we’re actually learning about how people classify things. I love this.
The biggest difference between an enduro bike and a supermoto is the rim and tire size. Enduros have tall thin rims and tires better for getting through rough terrain.
I’m assuming that “DR” means “dirt and road”. What does BMW’s “GS” stand for? "G"ood roads and "S"hitty roads? Does “XT” mean "X"treme "T"errain?
Yamaha made a crappy dirt bike in Taiwan called “DT”. That bike was fairly roadworthy. What does that stand for? "D"irt roads and also "T"armack? A guy I know bought one many years ago (maybe when they were “new”) and wanted to jump it over a dike*. He did, and ended up with oil on his pants. The shocks had blown. The store said “you shouldn’t do that”. What kind of dirt bike is that?
Here’s another weird question: Why do many dirt bikes–2 cycle or not–have the exhaust snaked to the left side when most non-dirt bikes–2 cycle or not–have the exhaust on the right? Is this a Thai, Japanese, British, etc. driving on the left thing?
A “dike” is: “a bank usually of earth constructed to control or confine water”. Also called “levee”. Please do not mistake my use of the word “dike” to mean anything negative, or in any way related to lesbians.
So I am quite new here and glad that I found some bike fans here in Taiwan too it seems.
So I am from Austria, actually I lived just about 40 km from KTM factory and just 2 km from “Salzburg Ring” which is race cercuit. I worked as safty stuff/ race director on kart races and as the pros from KTM came often to our indoor kart hall (do train the supermoto indoor…) we had to do a lot with them.
I even was safty stuff on some races so I think I can help a bit.
So Supermoto races usually have also a dirt part in the race, most of them I saw had about 1/3 of dirt part even with jumps and so on. Normally the it would switch the ground at least 2 or 3 times on one round.
The reason why this guys are going like this (we call it drifting) thourgh the corners is, because the corners are narrow and this way is faster.
That style is really completly different from the normal way going through the corners. You see it very good on the linked video.
Here is also a link with pics how they exercise indoor for training: http://www.kartsportcenter.com/modules/gallery/Best-of-Supermoto?page=1
So the Supermoto is more for useage also on normal streets than the Enduro. The Enduro races really go “croos country” with using normal paths and reall off road terrain.
Both kind of bikes are very popular in Austria and Germany. They are nice to handle in corners and they are very nice for mountain roads. They are usually with lighter engines 600 cc to max. 950 cc to be still handable in off road.
So I am not sure if this is helpful for you guys and it was just from the sight of an Austrian (that’s why you also should excuse my poor English).
So hope to get soon a bike here and get off going…
Supermoto basically is the term for the multi disclipine format racing that people started doing back in the late 80’s early 90’s where they wanted to get the best of both moto-x and closed course street racing… Usually Supermoto refers to this kind of asphalt circuit that includes a dirt section with jumps that makes up about 1/4 to 1/3 of the track…[EDIT: I see this has already been mentioned by Mingshah who posted while I was writing this …] Supermotard usually is used to refer to all asphalt closed course racing using the same type of bikes… think go kart tracks… these aren’t hard and fast rules at all, but generally speaking that’s the terminology…
MotorcycleRider’s already explained the differences in wheels and tires between Moto-X and Supermoto bikes, basically 17" spoked rims front and rear and sportsbike sticky tires instead of the larger 19" or 21" front wheel size found on most Moto-X and Enduro bikes…
The cornering / lean angle story is that Supermoto’s “gimmick” (kind of the wrong word since it’s totally legitimate) is the foot out, bolt upright, slide the rear into the corners similar to dirt tracking and flat tracking… basically you let the bike lean under you, instead of hanging off racer style because you want to break traction and slide the rear out… and that way if it grips you can control the impending high side much better with one foot on the ground and your weight off the bike as much as possible than you could hanging off GP racer style… backing the rear into corners supermoto style actually makes MotoGP tire sliding action seem pretty tame, although that’s only if you ignore the fact that supermoto’s are not doing it at 200km/h+ every corner… supermotos however get insane lean angles and often seem to be in danger of getting the handle bar down …
@ hm: my turn to correct you today… according to BMW, GS actually stands for Gel
And in the above picture he is leaning the “wrong” way. And that is what I meant about learning to ride differenctly in comparison to other bikes…not that any of us will ride to that extreme…but you get what I mean.
actually in the above pic he is bolt upright…but in the post before that (when I was writing) he is leaning a bit the wrong way…to break traction as plasma explained…
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