WORDS: JOCK MCLAUCHLAN
PHOTOS: BEN WILKINS
JOCK GIVES MITAS’ E-13 RALLY STAR AND
E-07+ A WORKOUT ON HIS AFRICA TWIN.
Mitas E-13 Rally Star
The E-13 Rally Star from Mitas is the new
benchmark when it comes to front end
traction for large adventure bikes for off-
road, gravel and some tar seal. There, I’ve
said it. That’s a big accolade. Let me explain...
I fitted a 90/90 21-inch to my Africa Twin
for the 30th anniversary (and final running)
of the Far North Adventure ride. The course
was a decent mix of road, gravel road,
gravel/mud tracks and some proper muddy
sections. I rode two up and never once had
front end traction worries – the E-13 worked
perfectly.
Take a look at the E-13 and you’ll see it
absolutely looks like a full-on knobbly. And
it behaves like one in the dirt too. That said,
I’d still call it an 80/20 tyre: 80% dirt and 20%
road. I say this because it behaves so well on
tar seal. Sure, you will not want to push this
tyre on wet tarmac, but in the dry it feels very
stable given how aggressive the knobs are.
On gravel and off-road it performs
exceptionally well – almost to the level you
might expect from a proper mud tyre. The
carcass feels tough and there is a built-in
rim saver in the bead which should go a long
way to preventing those impact flats that can
be common, especially on large and heavy
adventure bikes.
The tyre looks quite large, almost like a
100/100 size, for want of a better description,
with a nice rounded profile that puts a lot of
rubber on the ground at all lean angles. I’m
sure this contributes to its confident, planted
feel both on and off-road. I’ve now done
about 500km on it, about half on tar seal
and it still looks more or less like new. You
might be thinking it doesn’t sound like much,
but I find that most full-on knobblies would
have the edges shredded at the very least
by this distance on a heavy adventure bike.
All of these attributes go to making the E-13
my new go-to front tyre for pukka adventure
riding.
Mitas E-07+
At the back-end of things, the Mitas E0-7+
150/70-18 Enduro Trail is a 50/50 road and
gravel tyre. It looks similar to the standard
E0-7, but with much chunkier, tractor style
tread and a more rounded profile.
Like the E0-7, the E0-7+ is a hard wearing
tyre which offers decent grip on both road
and gravel, but sacrifices ultimate traction
on both surfaces in the name of longevity.
That is not to say it doesn’t offer good grip –
on gravel, straight line traction is great with
KIWI RIDER 33