Motoz Tyre Test

SMARTY recently shoe-horned a set of Motoz Tractionator tyres on his 58hp Husaberg 650 and gave them the workout from hell – here is the story.

No-one likes buying tyres. It is a pain in the arse to have to fork over $100 plus for a round bit of rubber that may or may not offer you the traction, performance and durability that you hoped for and with this in mind I had to have a good hard look at what I was going to put on the 58hp, 650cc Husaberg.

After a fair bit of net surfing I chose to slot the 80/100×21 and 130/90×18 Motoz ‘Tractionator’ Enduro ST tyres on for my first serious ride on the ’Berg which traversed many kilometres of trails in the D’Aguilar State Forest on the north side of Brisbane.

So why the Motoz tyres? Any trail rider knows that on any given day you can ride on solid hard packed trails through to sloppy mud, sand, rock and everything in between and according to the blurb on the Motoz web site the Tractionator series are ‘suitable for harsh conditions like desert racing, multi day enduro or long distance adventure riding’.

The Tractionator tyres are designed for long wear life, have a ‘Super Heavy Duty’ ply construction, a puncture resistant casing, reinforced sidewalls, large rim protector and anti chuncking compounds with ‘aggressive MX grip with robust enduro construction’.
So with all of that in mind I hit the trails just a few days after a good dose of rain and it wasn’t long before I found myself slopping my way through mud trails then up a sandy creek bed and into the deep loam at the floor of the forest.

Now, if you have ever ridden a dirt bike as fast as the ’Berg you will appreciate the need for two things. One is good brakes and the second is good traction and I am happy to say that I had both that day. Remember, I am a knucklehead when it comes to throttle control and love to rip from corner to corner so the above two elements are even more important for riders like me.

So all up, I can report back that the Motoz Tractionator tyres gave me a great deal of confidence throughout a hard day of riding, even the firm side walls didn’t deflect off the smaller bumps, there wasn’t too much tyre squash under hard braking and under acceleration I was really impressed with the drive a was getting out of each corner.

Funnily enough, a young Honda CRF250 rider that was along for the ride came up to me as we were resting between blasts and said, “I have never seen so much roost come out of any dirt bike in my life”.
I have now had the Motoz tyres on the ’Berg for three day long rides and the rear tyre wear is probably around 20 per cent and thankfully I am still getting good traction while I haven’t had any punctures along the way.

Other tyres in the Tractionator series include Tractionator (H/T), Tractionator Enduro (I/T) and Tractionator X-Circuit (I-H/T). Motoz tyres can be purchased on-line via its web site and there are selected dealers throughout Australia.

So, either go to www.motoz.com.au or call the guys from Pro-Accessories on 07 3277 0675.