’ is a tricky category to pick tyres for . Probably the trickiest of all to be honest . One person ’ s adventure could be tight twisty mountain roads , with some gravel road cruising – Molesworth , I ’ m looking at you here . At the other end of the spectrum , it ’ s technical singletrack through the woods Chris Birch style . That ’ s a bloody huge spectrum of tyre wants . Then there ’ s the longevity / cost ratio throwing a spanner in the works . Everybody wants the best dirt grip , ultimate road manners and the highest mileage ... all for peanuts . I ’ m here to tell you that this ‘ unicorn ’ tyre doesn ’ t exist . Seriously , stop looking for it , it ’ s not an actual thing . Just stop . When I bought my old BMW R80GS it came fitted with a set of almost new MotoZ Tractionator Adventure tyres front and rear . They gripped very well , in every situation ; dry and wet seal held no fears and they were great in gravel and even on pure dirt 4WD tracks . Great tyres . But ... I wasn ’ t so keen on the way they droned on the seal . And it got worse as they wore – so much so that Ray Heron could hear them from his Tenere 700 at 100km / h on the motorway out of Wellington . They drove me batty . So , I ’ ve got a 10-day trip coming up where I ’ ll be doing around 3500km on a lap of the South Island , taking in twisty seal , gravel roads and 4WD tracks like the Porika at the back of Lake Rotoroa , Piano Flat in the deep South and Serpentine Road off the Old Dunstan Road . My Mitas E07 has served well on the GS , with excellent road manners and pretty good grip in the gravel . At 12,000km it ’ s done well in the longevity stakes , with about 2.5mm of tread left . I ’ m looking for a little more off-road bite this time .

MOTOZ TRACTIONATOR RALLZ A bit of web-surfing led me to the MotoZ Tractionator Rallz . It ’ s based on the Tractionator Adventure I had before , but more aggressive for better dirt performance , coming in with a 20 / 80 road / dirt bias . And with silica in the compound blend it should have acceptable manners in the wet on the road too .

KIWI RIDER 25