Dirt Road Cornering

[GregsDRZ400]

Awesome info!

[Quinn]

The first time I rode my DR650 on a dirt/gravel road I felt like I would go down if I so much as tried to go around a corner. I thought I had made a big mistake in buying the DR. This year is the fourth season of riding and I have become pretty confident cornering on dirt at speed. Here is a list of what has worked for me.
1. Lower tire pressure - Suzuki recommends 22/25 PSI. I found that 18 PSI made the bike feel much more planted on dirt and 14-16 PSI was even better. 18-20 is a pressure that has worked for me for all riding except for high speed over sharp edged rocks (bent rim) and loaded extended high speed highway touring.
2. Chassis set up - In my case I needed to increase the preload on the rear spring so my weight did not sag the rear suspension down so much. This caused the rear of my bike to ride an inch or two higher which made the fork rake angle steeper. This small change made a big improvement in the cornering ability and feel of the bike. No longer did it feel like the front was going to slide out in a corner before the rear. I have heard that some guys have had smilier results by raising the fork tubes in the triple clamps a little.
3. Better tires - The stock Bridgestone Trailwings handled the paved roads well but were less than inspiring in the dirt. Pirelli MT21's and Dunlop D606's simply grip in the dirt corners much much better.
4. Technique - I am a self taught rider so I cannot give detailed instruction on technique, but I have found that sitting on the front part of the seat helps the bike get around corners, dirt or street, much better than when sitting on the rear of the seat. As a matter of fact when riding two up on dirt roads the steering feels kinda like guiding a sled in the general direction. Also, I'm not a big fan of leaning the bike way over on dirt corners like I do on the pavement. I tend to bend my upper body forward and down a bit. This seems to help but I can't say why.
5. Practice - Man, you just have to push it till it slides a few times, or a few thousand times in my case, to get the feel for it. If the front lets go, be ready to plant your inside foot down on the road hard and yank that sucka back up. If the rear lets go, let up on the throttle and counter steer to keep it going in the right direction. I still loose the front end when pushing it occasionally but I have not gone down for a long time. Knock on wood.

[ECW]

Thanks for posting this detailed info guys..........will try some of these tips.

[phil]

Discussions like this was one of the reasons to start this site!

[CamoKLR]

Definitely run lower tire pressures unless you're riding with a passenger. I run around 22 PSI on my pig of a KLR650, but run in the mid 30s when I have a passenger "aboard".

Good tires are worth their weight in gold. Dunlop D606s are alright, but I've found the front tire to wash out very easily, almost as easily as a non-knobby tire. For the money and performance, I'd recommend a Kenda K760/Trakmaster II for a rear tire and a Kenda "Triple" K781 front tire. The rear lasts me around only 1000 miles but its 100% worth it for the summer offroad season. They both feel twice as good in the dirt as D606s and are about $20 cheaper for the set (K760 rear + K781 front). If you put on a lot of road miles I would recommend the D606s or MT21s over them but I only do about 10% of my riding on the street during the season. Why no Kenda K760 front, you may ask? It gets pretty bad reviews compared to the rear tire. Why no K781 rear? They don't make it for 17" rims. The rear K760 is a well known dual sport tire and is widely accepted on ADVRider as probably the best true dual sport (note: not adventure touring, but a more true dual sport riding style with probably only 25% of miles on the road on a more dirt bike type bike, not a BMW GS or Triumph Tiger but a KLR, DRZ, DR, or XR) tire available for most peoples riding needs. The "Triple" is a newly released tire that is supposed to handle "loose surfaces on top of hard-packed terrain". To me, that sounded like Rampart and most offroad in Colorado and so far I couldn't be happier.

A good front tire is much harder to track down than a good rear tire. I'm not positive why this is but I think it's because most people have higher expectation for traction for a front tire. A front tire must truly be AGGRESSIVE if it's going to corner well and keep you going straight ahead even when you get airborne and angled not so straight. Many "sets" of tire seem to have great reviews for the rear and not so stellar reviews for the same front tire as I pointed out with the D606 and K760 (many online reviews to back this up). A true MX/offroad tire for the specific terrain one's seeing is the solution for many dual sporters on ADVRider and that's why I went with the K781. Just make sure its DOT rated...not only for law enforcement's eyes, but for the fact that a non-DOT rated tire may not be able to handle the pavement miles you might want to put it through and catastrophic tire failure isn't very fun on a boiling hot day on the jam-packed interstate! Can you say, "shredded donut"?

I also have had great experience with Shinko 244s front and rear. They are a true 50/50 tire that do great on road and are acceptable offroad. If you're just puttsing around with a passenger on back they are more than what you'll need offroad and even when you're solo they are fine till you hit loose single track or decide to pretend like you have true knobbies on around every loose dirt corner. I got about 7k miles of out the rear tire. A set is around $70, WOWZERS!

If you're a 95/5 (on/off road) type of rider, I'd highly recommend Shinko 705s. They handle like a street tire on the road even when its wet, wear well (I got almost 10k out a rear tire that I beat to hell and back, wheelies, slides, rough offroad), and still do well enough offroad to allow one to explore dirt...when its dry. ~$100 a set. For off-season riding, mostly street of course since most trails are closed (Rampart during the winter in not KLR650 material...), I choose between Shinko 244s and 705s depending on how much offroad I plan on seeing during the few occasions I might explore in the dirt.