theboondorks Yamaha WR450 blog

New tires for the Yamaha WR450

5/17/2017

The Yamaha WR450 patiently waiting for new shoes

I know I was supposed to post pictures of the Yamaha's new tires yesterday but for some reason I didn't. it could have been been laziness, or senility, or more than likely, just decided to do something else. But today I will do what I should've done yesterday.

It's amazing how much that last sentence sounds like the story of my life, seeing as how I'm the Prince of procrastination. If you look up procrastination on Wikipedia you'll see a picture of me, as soon as I get around to sending them one.

But I digress, I'm not here to talk about my failures, foibles, and eccentricities because there's not enough ink in all of the pens in the world to clearly explain my foibles much less my failures and eccentricities. I'm here to talk tires.

The Motoz rear tire I bought is a 100x110x18. The WR450 comes with a 100x120x18 which is supposed to be about 1/2 inch wider than the tire I just bought. When I checked the Motoz website I found out that the Motoz 120 tire was a little bit taller than the 110 and the last thing I wanted to do was make the Yamaha any taller than it is right now. Fortunately because of the Motoz tread design it had the same width as the WR450 factory tire so I didn't have to give up anything in terms of rubber on the ground.

The Continental TKC 80 is a fairly standard 90 x 90 x 21 front tire and appears to be very much like the trials type tires that were standard on enduro bikes back in the day.

I haven't had a chance to ride the Yamaha WR450 in the dirt seeing as how Denver has a lot more pavement than dirt, but the new tires behavior on the streets is just what I was hoping for, there relatively quiet, don't vibrate, and has a more stable feeling going around curves than the squirmy knobby tires that were on it.

So far I'm happy with my choice of tires but its going to take some more time and some different riding conditions to determine if these are really the best tires for how and where I ride.

theboondork