chain loob (intentionally misspelled, because i saw it spelled t

[Jeff Khoury]

#ygrps-yiv-1032609167 p {margin:0;}I would be willing to lay money that I'm the only one who's taken to a used chain with a pair of digital calipers and a child's video microscope that looks like a giant eyeball. http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/07/1 ... icroscope/ I can only imagine how it looked to someone who might have been watching.  It was cool seeing the pin magnified to the point where it filled my 42" big screen, though.  Why didn't they have these when I was a kid? -Jeff Khoury

[Ian]

Had the Kenda K270s on there when I bought my KLR. Having a street knob on the front was not a lot of fun on asphalt, squirmy feeling (as well documented), so I replaced it with a Pirelli Scorpion A/T. That front tire made all the difference in the twisties even with a squared off rear Kenda K270. When the Kenda wore out I put on a matching Scorpion rear. That set of tires worked great for the riding I did, 99% street and 1% fire road and gravel. The rear lasted about 8k miles and the front lasted more than 12k miles. The KLR with these quote-unquote 90% street tires is a better dirt bike than I am a dirt rider, but I had no trouble with fire roads at a slow pace. I got into a sandy dry river bed once and it was not much fun. The bike seemed real tall and heavy in that kind of soft stuff, but I didn't get stuck. The blocks on the Pirellis are large but the grooves are not very wide or deep compared to this new set of tires, the Kenda 761s. The rear has been on there 5k miles and looks almost new, only slightly squared off. Tons of tread left. The front has been on there less than 100 miles but it is clear that it will work very well in the twisties. On the SoCal freeways the front tire is very well behaved. It ignores rain grooves and deep expansion joints etc. and is stable up to 80 mph where it starts to feel a little bit light and wobbly but nothing real scary. It might be time to tighten my steering bearings again. $49 +tx with free mounting and balancing at Cycle Rider in Ontario CA. Less than half the cost of the Pirellis!I know you serious off roaders think running a KLR650 on street tires is useless but it really makes a decent canyon carver and solo tourer set up like that.