Ou Ryperd
Race Dog
Last week Thursday I fitted a 140 Heidi rear tyre on the 950. 1st problem - no arrow indicating which direction, so gut feel says "V" pattern must face upwards - confirmed with Adventurer (ps: thanks Adv for letting me pick the tyre up @ your home Wednesday during working hours).
Spoke to Michnus, he said PLEASE heat cycle the tyre before you steek it down the road. "Ok Mich, I will..." well, no I did not have time to heat cycle the tyre as I could not ride Friday before our ride to Dullstroom Saturday.
Come Saturday, I took it easy (120km/h) to the meeting point and the tyre felt good, in fact, it felt awesome on tar. No whoble-whoble as with the TKC's, but smooth as a Scorp.
From the meeting point onto our 1st stretch of dirt - time for the real test. At this point, let me tell you that I always fitted TKC's (140's) on the KTM as I know what I can expect from them and it gave me a sense of security knowing how the tyre will react in situations, so to fit a Heidi with all the negative comments from some forum members (with the counter arguments from others) was a big step for me.
Back to the riding. The Heidi has a more aggressive pattern than the Scorp, but is not a full knoblie. However, it did provide adequate grip on the dirt roads giving me the assurance that it won't let go, so I was back into my normal riding mode with no fear.
The wear on the tyre looks good, no big cuts or chunks missing, and this after about 600km of hard riding on both dirt and tar (when we came back from Dullstroom we steeked it to get home before the big rain - see ride report).
A few things I picked up:
- the Heidi felt smoother on tar than the TKC
- on dirt it does not grip as good as the TKC, but the spin/slide is controllable and fun
- through the mud it cleaned itself easily and provided enough traction
- on the rocky section grip was good (could not feel the difference between the Heidi and a TKC)
So, if all the rumors about getting 10k kilometers on a rear is true, then I will fit another Heidi rear to the 950. But, 600km is still early days for final verdict.
I will continue to post here on my findings re the Heidi.
Spoke to Michnus, he said PLEASE heat cycle the tyre before you steek it down the road. "Ok Mich, I will..." well, no I did not have time to heat cycle the tyre as I could not ride Friday before our ride to Dullstroom Saturday.
Come Saturday, I took it easy (120km/h) to the meeting point and the tyre felt good, in fact, it felt awesome on tar. No whoble-whoble as with the TKC's, but smooth as a Scorp.
From the meeting point onto our 1st stretch of dirt - time for the real test. At this point, let me tell you that I always fitted TKC's (140's) on the KTM as I know what I can expect from them and it gave me a sense of security knowing how the tyre will react in situations, so to fit a Heidi with all the negative comments from some forum members (with the counter arguments from others) was a big step for me.
Back to the riding. The Heidi has a more aggressive pattern than the Scorp, but is not a full knoblie. However, it did provide adequate grip on the dirt roads giving me the assurance that it won't let go, so I was back into my normal riding mode with no fear.
The wear on the tyre looks good, no big cuts or chunks missing, and this after about 600km of hard riding on both dirt and tar (when we came back from Dullstroom we steeked it to get home before the big rain - see ride report).
A few things I picked up:
- the Heidi felt smoother on tar than the TKC
- on dirt it does not grip as good as the TKC, but the spin/slide is controllable and fun
- through the mud it cleaned itself easily and provided enough traction
- on the rocky section grip was good (could not feel the difference between the Heidi and a TKC)
So, if all the rumors about getting 10k kilometers on a rear is true, then I will fit another Heidi rear to the 950. But, 600km is still early days for final verdict.
I will continue to post here on my findings re the Heidi.
