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So last week a few guys snd I rode up to Crown King, AZ for dinner. On the way back about 8 p.m. the guy in front of me spooked 2 black cows out of the ditch. Running about 30mph on the dirt road a got on the brakes, but street tires and ABS decided i should keep most of that speed. I clipped the rump of the cow with the headlights on my Tenere. I didn't crash, kinda rode through the incident. After stopping, giving myself a pat down and looking around and the cows were gone. Nowhere to be seen. Bike is a bit worse for wear, about 1k in parts, but they are ordered and on the way. All at 29,830 miles and the bikes first real damage incident. I was able to tape the headlights in place and ride the 70 miles home from the incident, so at least there is that.

Well a nice crispy new set of Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires fell off a Fedex Truck the other day... at my house This can be attributed to XLADV (thanks Eric, you rock)... Eric and I have been having several conversations back and forth about this tire. I assume many others (like myself) are always on the never ending hunt for the tire that can do it all, weekend hood-rat things with your friends off-road, and slabbing it to work every day on freeways. I still haven't found perfection yet.... but I gotta say these look promising. I mounted Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires by hand this morning because I wanted to see how hard that would be, worried that the side-tread might stiffen things up a bit. The front tire was easy to mount, no more difficult than mounting a Shinko front tire (which is easy). The front tire also didn't feel incredibly heavy, or much heavier than the other tires. The Rear sidewall is fairly rigid, and the tire does feel heavy. Mounting the rear tire will just require you to really stay on top of ensuring the already mounted bead-walls are in the channel of the rim, and not near the bead at all, you will need every bit of play to get that last bit over the rim. The rear took more effort than the Shinkos I am used to, but it wasn't bad enough for me to be dropping MF's while mounting. Zero MF's for front or rear, but let's just say rear had me thinking the words, just not quite saying them.... lol I will be running my new Dunlop Trailmax Mission tire at the 2019 Geico Adventure Rally next week, afterwards I will be able to provide a good bit of review for the off-road bits, and some long fast slab at least from the normal daily-rider average joe ADV guy perspective...... **HOWEVER** ....I did do a short series of very important (to me) tests today... Mostly street/freeway, but some dirt/gravel... The (my) first impressions... Do they wobble in rain grooves: Nope, NOT ONE BIT... YAAY!... Not while cornering well north of 80 on grooves either. Do they look rad: Yes, I also rode them to the local dealership and you might say they brought all the boys to the yard. Speed test: If I was a betting man, I would bet that if someone had tested them in this manner... these tires are just fine above 3 digits. Handling, profile, cornering: They are brand new, I did get after them a bit today but I want them to break in a bit.. more later but so far - perfect. Does the front track in dirt/gravel: I whipped it through 2 *short* dirt/gravel roads twice today, the front tracked very well, seems to be doing its job. More after rally. Rear tire in dirt/gravel: The rear spin is really... nice? I mean it's a really predictable clean spin when the rear lets go, i slid the rear brake a few times, felt just fine. More after rally. Sidewalls: For you air-down types, these might be a good tire... seems like at least the rear has a much stiffer sidewall than I'm used to. Balancing: I use a static balancer, these took a lot less time and weight to balance than big blocks, probably just luck but the rear needed zero weight. More later after the Rally... Because I daily commute, ride every day, and so on (<- shoutout - EDar) ... I'll be letting everyone know how long they lasted.. because I am really curious too.... so far though I'm excited about these. Also just for the sake of records keeping... Bike had 28,200 miles on it when I put the tires on.... so we will see how many miles we get out of these puppies.