I thought I would share a little tire adventure we had last weekend. After busting our humps working for the last three years starting a small construction company my two partners and myself rewarded ourselfs by each buying a new quad,we went with TRX 350fm's,we equiped them all with winches,and were standing with the dealer bantering about wich tires to buy when he suggested we try three diferent types,and being we bought the three bikes thru him,and if we bought the tires thru him,he would let us return any of the tires for our choice.
So after bumming around our various yards for a couple of weeks we decided to try them out a little more scientifically.we went into the recently thawed foothills for a two day ride,and tried some comparitive type competitions
The tires we were comparing were the bearclaws,the mudlites and the gators,for the most part we ran 25"x10" rears and 25"x8" fronts,there was one size alteration due to availability on the gators but sittin here I dont remember it,but it was as close as possible to the others,and not that it matters,but we all ran itp type 5 wheels.
our first comparison was a bottomless mud hole in a swampy area,and to our surprize the only on to get stuck repeatedly was the gators,they seemed to want to chew down while the others floated over the top,we all agreed it would have been diferent if there would have been a bottom for the gators to chew down to.
this was the same time we realized a warn 2.5 is not powerfull enough to pull out a very stuck quad,but with an additional quad nosed up to a stout tree we got it out,though barely.
the next obstacle rose rather unanounced,it was a tree stump about 8" high that the bearclaw equiped bike had its very flimsy tin skid plate bent on and the other bikes cleared easily,the 25" bearclaws are barely if at all taller than the stock dirt hooks.
the next test was the most decisive of any,at was a long very steep hill of hardpacked clay/dirt with small sharp rocks jutting out,and just a skiff of loose material on the surface by far the bearclaws had better traction here,to the point were it was the only bike with any rider that could make it to the top in first gear,the mudlites spun out about 100' from the top ever time in first gear,but made it comfortably in 2nd gear with some wheel speed,and the gators only ever made it once with very agressive riding starting in 3rd,then jambing into 2nd and spinning wildly to the top,we tried verious air pressures in all the tires,and tried all the drivers on all three bikes,our conclusion was that the softer the tire the better they did on hard ground,the gators dont flex hardly at all at any air pressure,while the others do to some extent,allowing the tire to follow the ground.
we spent by far the longest "playing" on the big hill,trying diferent techniques etc,but some other observations were that the mudlites and bearclaws side hilled very well,but the gators did not.
interesting enough at the end of the trip we all decided to stay with the tire we all started off with except the owners of the mudlites and gators traded complete wheels,and the owner of the bearclaws would like to go to 26" just to get to a true 25".
obviously this wasnt very scientific,nor was it intended to be,but it was fun and it changed our impression of the apearance vs performance of a few tires anyway.just thought I would share it with you folks.
So after bumming around our various yards for a couple of weeks we decided to try them out a little more scientifically.we went into the recently thawed foothills for a two day ride,and tried some comparitive type competitions
The tires we were comparing were the bearclaws,the mudlites and the gators,for the most part we ran 25"x10" rears and 25"x8" fronts,there was one size alteration due to availability on the gators but sittin here I dont remember it,but it was as close as possible to the others,and not that it matters,but we all ran itp type 5 wheels.
our first comparison was a bottomless mud hole in a swampy area,and to our surprize the only on to get stuck repeatedly was the gators,they seemed to want to chew down while the others floated over the top,we all agreed it would have been diferent if there would have been a bottom for the gators to chew down to.
this was the same time we realized a warn 2.5 is not powerfull enough to pull out a very stuck quad,but with an additional quad nosed up to a stout tree we got it out,though barely.
the next obstacle rose rather unanounced,it was a tree stump about 8" high that the bearclaw equiped bike had its very flimsy tin skid plate bent on and the other bikes cleared easily,the 25" bearclaws are barely if at all taller than the stock dirt hooks.
the next test was the most decisive of any,at was a long very steep hill of hardpacked clay/dirt with small sharp rocks jutting out,and just a skiff of loose material on the surface by far the bearclaws had better traction here,to the point were it was the only bike with any rider that could make it to the top in first gear,the mudlites spun out about 100' from the top ever time in first gear,but made it comfortably in 2nd gear with some wheel speed,and the gators only ever made it once with very agressive riding starting in 3rd,then jambing into 2nd and spinning wildly to the top,we tried verious air pressures in all the tires,and tried all the drivers on all three bikes,our conclusion was that the softer the tire the better they did on hard ground,the gators dont flex hardly at all at any air pressure,while the others do to some extent,allowing the tire to follow the ground.
we spent by far the longest "playing" on the big hill,trying diferent techniques etc,but some other observations were that the mudlites and bearclaws side hilled very well,but the gators did not.
interesting enough at the end of the trip we all decided to stay with the tire we all started off with except the owners of the mudlites and gators traded complete wheels,and the owner of the bearclaws would like to go to 26" just to get to a true 25".
obviously this wasnt very scientific,nor was it intended to be,but it was fun and it changed our impression of the apearance vs performance of a few tires anyway.just thought I would share it with you folks.
