Kenda K671

[gregr]

Any experience with Kenda K671 tires? Would be used for Non-agressive street riding.

[crag antler]

Here are quite a few opinions on the tire from a D/S site I go to. Hope it helps.
I believe most of these riders are on the KLR650

http://www.standoutnet.com/extras/mike/motorcycles/klr650/tires/#k761

Kenda K761


...if you want a slightly different compromise you could try the Kenda 761. It's definitely a little better off-road, has very good dry pavement traction, but is a little disturbing in the wet. I've had a set on my bike for about 1500 miles now and I'd say they won't last as long as the Distanzias did, but they're pretty cheap so maybe that's not such a big deal."

They wiggle around a lot and it's easy to lock the front braking. The stock tires were considerably better on wet pavement and the Distanzias were better still. The Kendas are still pretty darned good when the pavement is dry, though. The stock tires were also somewhat better in snow, but who spends much time riding in the snow?

The K761s are not so good either but I have tractored the bike out of situations I know from painful experience I would have had to drag it out of on its side when it was shod with the Avons.

For street use, the Kenda 761 seems to work quite well. Very sticky on-road and supposedly will handle gravel better than Metzeler Tourances (not that this is saying much, my bike had Tourances on it when I bought it and they were utterly useless on anything but pavement).

the 761's are much nicer for commuting -- they work well in the rain, stick like glue, and they don't whine.

More street oriented than the K270, and also popular. At the time of this writing, this was the most popular D/S tire at Rider Valley Motorcycles. Quiet, and hooks up well.

I can at least say that the Kenda 761 (which seems to use a tread pattern similar to some Trailwings... which are OEM on some other 650cc dualies) has wide enough gaps between the large tread blocks that it is _possible_, though not _pleasant_, to tractor it out of deep mud. That is not true for some other street oriented tires I have used like the Distanzia and the Gripster.

Hmm, I have 761's on my KLR, and can attest that they do well on the highway and on gravel, but I would have never thought they'd handle mud. Granted, I walloped them through a few bogholes during the rainy season here, but I had a head of steam up and you can get through any boghole as long as you have enough steam going to make it to the other side before you need, like, traction.

I don't know that I'd say that the K761 will "handle" a little mud so much as that, at least, "it's possible to get yourself out of a little mud if you're stupid enough to get into it with K761s on your bike".

The space between the tread blocks on a K761 is significantly greater than that on a Distanzia and has a shape that seems to throw mud better than the shape of the between-blocks space on the Gripster.

I like my Kenda 761's a lot better, they're as good as the Tourance on the road (unless it's wet, in which case the Tourance rocks big time), but have enough chunk to them that they're adequate on gravel

With the Kenda 761's, I have no wobble at any speed no matter how much load I'm carrying. With a heavy load there's just the tiniest bit of high speed instability up around 80mph (indicated), but not anything that is really disturbing, it just has a tendency to shake its head one time when you hit a big bump.

Road performance was on par with Gripsters - excellent grip. Off road, they are better than the gripsters to start. Problem is, at about 1500 miles, the center grooves (which are half the depth of the outer tread) are gone and the center of the tire is smooth. This does not make for a good situation either off pavement, or in the rain. My other complaint is front tire life. At 2600 miles, the front is severely cupped. I am thinking one could dismount and rotate it to run backwards, but I will probably just exchange it with another. I will be changing these out with in the next 500 miles.

I've got a couple hundred miles on the Kenda 761 rear now. So far I'm really impressed. The old Gripster was pretty hard and slippery, even on dry pavement. We haven't had any rain yet. This Kenda is like gum. It really screaches to a fast stop if I have to jump on it. The ride is much better than the Avon too. Cornering is a little squirrly though (Kenda 270 front). THis may jst be bedcause its new. The Gripster was actually slipping out on corners. I'll be looking for a 761 front when the 270 goes. So far I've got 5000 miles on the front and it is just starting to show signs of wear.

I ran the OEM front and the Kenda 761 rear on a 2500 mile tour with out any problems, I now have a matched set of 761's because the front OEM finally wore out.

I'm getting about 4500 miles out of a pair. The front still has plenty of tread at the end of it, but is scalloped and cupped enough to make handling iffy, thus you want to replace as a pair.

I'm running a K 761 rear and like it just fine. The Gripster rear I had on before really disappointed. The tire only lasted about 4000 miles and was not real satisfying.

At 4,000 miles, the rear tire still is a long way from cord, but is a bit squared off. It has lost approximately 1/4" off the rubber, and has a little over 1/4" left in the center of the tire. It's probably about 500 miles from hitting the wear bar. If you want to keep running it after that, there's probably another 3,000 miles worth of rubber on the tread before it really gets unsafe. I presume that Kenda set the wear bars so high because it becomes even less useful in the dirt otherwise and starts handling rather, err, abruptly, as it squares of. On the front, the tire is noticably scalloped, with the front of the "arrows" being taller than the rear of the "arrows". It is still a long ways away from the wear bar though. Running high air pressures extends the life greatly. My first set of 761's did not last very long (by 4,000 miles the rear was already well into the wear bar). I ran 32/32 front/rear with this set, other than when on gravel or dirt. Running high air pressure on the street also helps the handling. With relatively stiff springing (for a KLR) and with 32PSI front/rear, my KLR handles quite crisply compared to what it handled stock. As far as handling goes, these are great street tires as long as the pavement is dry. They have a short stiff sidewall and a road-oriented shape that encourages fast riding in the twisties. On wet pavement I've never really tested their limits -- I've ridden several hundred miles in the rain on these tires. They've never let me down in the rain, but I can't really say much. On the dry, though, they're great in the twisties. On gravel and dirt roads, they work reasonably well as long as you air them down. I air my front to around 14PSI and rear to around 16PSI in the rough stuff and it tractors through it, as long as we're not talking about a sand wash with ten foot deep sand or a mud hole with two foot deep mud. The 761 is street-oriented insofar as its basic shape and short stiff carcass goes, but has bigger grooves and more aggressive lugs than street-oriented tires like the Avon Gripster. The downside is, as noted above, short tire life -- roughly 4500 miles.

Easy to drag pegs and great on gravel. Not to mention cheap. I think I've got about 5000 street miles on mine, and my rear is maybe 1/2 worn.
My 761 did not squirm at all when pumped up to operating pressure (which is *not* 22psi!) -- it railed corners. As for the tire wear, it works fine without the center grooves, I'm not sure why Kenda chose that particular tread pattern there, but you actually get more traction on dry pavement once the bogus grooves are gone. I ran my rear for 2,000 miles past that point with no handling issues, and probably have another 2,000 miles left on it (it's in storage as a spare right now).

Agree with no squiring with the 761's on dry pavement, they just plain stick (32 front and rear) and while the front skates a little more on loose gravel then the stock front it has never done anything bad or even been loose enough to cause me to air it down. With about 15ook so far they still look new with no detectable wear. On wet pavement while they track well the rear tire will spin and slide slighty but very controllably in 1st or 2nd with a little too much throtle, neat feeling but not recommended....

Going with a Kenda 761 now and liking it. Very similar [to Gripster] but slightly more agressive and a softer bead. Still running a gripster on the front.

[Steve]

Rather informative post, Crag, but that was for the 761, he asked about the 671.

Or is one of you two guys dyslexic and it's really the same tire?

EDIT: I just went to Kenda.com and found that they are two distinctly different tires.
Click on the numbers for info: ..... 671 ..... 761


..................... 671 .................................................. .. 761
.............
.

[gregr]

I was definately asking about the K671 sport-touring tire.

[bobthebiker88]

I've run the 671 on sportbikes doing some pretty aggresive riding. they seem to handle it quite nicely. budget tire offering a lot more than budget performance.

[Steve]

I was definately asking about the K671 sport-touring tire.

No experience with the 671, but have run a couple sets of 657 Challengers.

They were just OK tires. Seemed to grip OK, but did not last very long.

.

[salty_monk]

Shinko seems to be another budget offering that are currently well thought of....

[crag antler]

Rather informative post, Crag, but that was for the 761, he asked about the 671.

Or is one of you two guys dyslexic and it's really the same tire?

No, your right Steve. My bad. So much for an early morning post.
Sorry.

[gregr]

CRAG The nice thing is you took the time to reply. THANKS!

[Furious D]

Great review on the Kenda's Crag.

My local shop suggested these for my Scrambler. I was considering the Avons or Metzler Tourances, but the price of the Kenda's caught my attention.

The trailwings on my Scrambler now arent too bad on/offroad but they plain suck in the rain. I noticed they are the same size as on My GS sidecar rig so I may put them on it to give it an "enduro" look.

[Tim Tom]

No experience with the 671, but have run a couple sets of 657 Challengers.

They were just OK tires. Seemed to grip OK, but did not last very long.

.

Same here with the 657's. I ran through a set in about 5 months and 4500 miles. They were decent enough dry, but wet was a bit sketchy at times. The 671's tread looks like it may shed water better. For the price they are probably a better tire then the 657. BTW I just ordered a new set of Bridgestone S11 Spitfires today. Not that much more expensive (130 for both shipped) and they are supposed to be a very good tire for the not-terribly-aggressive street rider.

[crag antler]

Great review on the Kenda's Crag.

My local shop suggested these for my Scrambler. I was considering the Avons or Metzler Tourances, but the price of the Kenda's caught my attention.

The trailwings on my Scrambler now arent too bad on/offroad but they plain suck in the rain. I noticed they are the same size as on My GS sidecar rig so I may put them on it to give it an "enduro" look.

I went with the IRC GP-1 for my XL600

Seems to be a good tire with none of the Kenda's issues.
Sorry for the hi-jack