Dunlop Mutant Reviews

5 Stars because they have loads of grip and handle really well on road - which is their primary job, will adjust the stars accordingly once I see final mileage.

Now that I have a plated kinda-skinny to compliment the daily driver adv bike, I don't have to juggle as much on tire selection. Over the 60,000 miles I had on my first two ADV bikes, I was constantly trying combos between 90/10 and 60/40 tires... Trying to balance the right choice for my daily driver and weekend off-road bike. Just to catch you up on the results of that 60,000 mile search for perfect tire test.... The Dunlop Trailmax Mission tire is my absolute favorite tire for an ADV bike that is also your everything else daily driver. You can read that: Here

When it came time for new tires on my.. let's call it a sport-adv bike, I was trying to decide between just staying with the Trailmax Mission, or going 90/10 to fully street tire. I decided that I know how much I like the Missions, but why not try something new - enter the MUTANTS. The Dunlop Sportmax Mutants fall more in the 90/xx range with obvious street bias. One of the big bullet points is these tires are supposed to perform very well in wet-road conditions, but what peaked my interest was the YouTube videos of dudes doing track days on them, and saying they were very impressed. 

This is immediately after they were mounted, only a few miles on the clock: 







I took the pictures above as soon as I got home from the dealer, only a few miles on the clock so that we can watch the tread depth as I pack on miles. The immediate reaction to the tires on the way home is I really like the profile, it's a gradual and precise, also the tread looks weird so that's cool too 🙂

Shortly after mounting them, my wife and I took off on the bikes for seven days, and did a big tour through southern Arizona, which was amazing, highly recommended. Here is a couple pics from that trip, I am running the Sportmax Mutant tires, my wife has the Trailmax Missions. 





In total I think the ride distance for that trip was north of 1,300 miles. We rode to Prescott, Jerome, and some of the in-betweens before getting to Tucson, then hit Tombstone and Bisbee area for a couple days, overnight in Yuma and back home to SoCal. Great places to visit, great roads to ride - but also a pretty well rounded test for these tires, in what I would consider the exact conditions I would want to expose them to... Road touring, daily driving, and light dirt roads are just fine. 

Honestly I never worried about my tires the entire trip, we just really had an amazing time. To that point, we had some dirt conditions just to see sights, and a couple patches of highway that had surprise pea gravel etc... These tires just did all that just fine, while providing really great road performance. My wife is very new to off-road riding on her big bike, so the Trailmax Mission tires have been really confidence inspiring for her when little ventures off-road do happen. 

Since the Arizona trip, all added up, I have had the Mutants on for 2,100 miles. Here is the tread at 2,100 miles - and 1,300 of that was while fully loaded on road tour. The tread depth is still pretty good, the tires are light here because of a dirt road on the way home today, but I'm not worrying about these being done any time soon, they are wearing pretty well. 

Sportmax Mutants at 2,100 Miles - Ducati Multistrada 950




So I mean these tires may not be the pick for off-roady ADV riders for a lot of reasons, but they also could be for some... Depending on what you are doing off-road. They are not off-road tires, but I bet they would be a hoot for that commute, and you can still ride down that dirt road to go see that whatever-it-is no problem, your just not going to race the guy with the Desert HT's while you do it.

For me they are pretty nice for the larger bike - but being honest, I think I will go back to the Dunlop Trailmax Mission after this set, I like the range of trails I would be willing to expose this spicy Italian bike to better with the Missions, but I can really see how the Mutants could be perfect adventure tires for folks that do road tours with light off road - I will just also hold that thought until I see how long they last. 

I will update again in comments, or main story here when I think they are about ready to go, hoping for descent mileage out of these tires - and maybe these would be up your alley if you adventure mostly on-road. 

- Nick