Somebody talk me out of buying this F650 GS

[Fubar]

I just bought this bike yesterday.

Apparently no one was able to follow the thread title's instruction.

Nice ride, tho. You're gonna run out of garage space if you keep this up , Larry. What a shame that would be!

[FLrider]

I just bought this bike yesterday.

Apparently no one was able to follow the thread title's instruction.

Nice ride, tho. You're gonna run out of garage space if you keep this up , Larry. What a shame that would be!

 

Well, that's my fault as I derailed my own thread.

[FLrider]

So, if I bought the little GS (F or G650) and 85% of my riding was asphalt but 15% was fire roads, hard packed dirt and maybe some gravel roads, would the stock tires be the best solution?

 

The F650 has a tendency to plow the front end in sand and gravel. I have used Tourance and Distanzias on the front. Both performed poorly off of pavement. The bike has a Mefo Explorer on it now.

LINKY

 

Much better trail manners and still a good highway tire.

 

So what did you use on the rear? Did you still like the Tourance on the rear?

 

 

Of the rear tires I have used on this bike, the best was the Distanzia. Much better in dirt and gravel than the Tourance. It also went about 3K more miles than the Tourance. The Tourance was the best street tire. On this bike the Tourance worked worst in all off road situations. I currently run a Shinko on the rear as it was about 1/3 the price of the other two, and I see no negative handling difference either on or off road using it.

 

 

I have found the front tire to be far more critical to handling off road situation than the rear tire on this bike.

Hope that helps.

 

 

Finally got to take a peek at the tires. They are Michelin Anakee's. Tread is 80% so I probably wont replace them soon. The tread pattern seems to be fairly well suited for highway and fire roads. We'll see.