Last month we were lucky enough to take a trip to beautiful Morocco, to test two brand new tyres from Bridgestone.
As the proud owner of a 1200 Super Tenere, we asked Shaun from our Sales Team to give us his opinion on how their new adventure tyre performed:
“Day one of the launch in Morocco was a ride out on a selection of adventure bikes on the Battlax Adventure A41. The route took us through a combination of tight technical mountain roads, long sweeping bends and a small foray off-road through some of the most scenic landscape and perfect tarmac I have ever seen. At its peak, the temperature hit a respectable 21 degrees which meant the roads were nice and warm and we could push the tyres a little harder than we could in the UK at this time of year.
I decided to test them out on the Yamaha 1200 Super Ténéré first, as that’s what I ride at home, and it was nice to test the newer version of the bike at the same time as the tyres, I had actually been looking at getting a set of A41s before I left to take over from the Continental TKC 70s I run at the moment, as I wanted something with a little less off-road bias but that could still cope with the pot holes and debris often found mid corner on the country roads of rural Wales.
The A41s coped with everything that was thrown at them, they were quick to tip in on the technical sections and provided more than enough grip on the ever changing road surfaces, gliding over potholes and bumps mid corner with ease. High speed stability was excellent, which was a massive plus as we did have to cope with some high crosswinds on some sections of the journey.
After I had tested out the Ténéré in its standard modes and again in sports mode, with the suspension settings in hard, I decided to give the tyres a go on the Triumph Tiger Explorer and finally the BMW R1200GS Adventure which was the most fun I have ever had on a motorcycle, even though it was admittedly a little out of my comfort zone as the final section of the day included a ride up through the mountains, passing through small villages on single track lanes dodging over-laden trucks and cars.
Finally a very short off- road jaunt to a viewing point where we could look back on the route we had taken. I have only ever done very light green-laning on a big adventure bike so the mixture of loose rocks and red sand on the trails of Morocco was completely new to me, however you soon get used to the bike’s rear wheel moving around underneath you and your confidence begins to grow. We were supposed to be doing a much larger off-road section but issues with some of the bikes meant the planned 50km off-road route was reduced considerably, which was a bit of a shame, but it meant we could climb further into the mountains and push the bikes and tyres up a number of tight hairpin bends which was a lot of fun and a true test of the A41s grip levels.
After over 300 kms riding on the A41s I can honestly say that I was very impressed, so much so that I will be buying a set as soon as the TKC 70s are done.
A massive thanks goes out to Bridgestone and Cambrian tyres for the opportunity to test the tyres, it was a lot of fun.”
The Battlax A41 is now in stock for our trade customers, and you can find out more about the tyre here.
