With the UK adventure bike market growing, tyre manufacturers are responding to a shift in taste with a range of road biased and dual purpose tyres for big adventure bikes.
The Avon Distanzia has been around for 15 years now, and has been popular with riders in the UK and abroad with the travel blogging Schram family using the tyre all over the world.
However, to respond to the change in demand from consumers Avon are conducting a unique experiment in conjunctions with RiDE Magazine dubbed ‘The Tyre That RiDE Built’.
With the help of some of the RiDE team, along with two readers who have covered plenty of miles on the kinds of bikes that Avon want to target. Ideal candidates to tell Avon exactly what they are looking for in the shape of new dual purpose rubber with on and off-road capabilities.
In the first part of the project, which can be read in the October 2014 issue of RiDE, readers Duncan and Dan get to try the Distanzia for the first time to see just how it feels with a rather damp track at RAF Bruntingthorpe which is used by the likes of Bentley for testing. Both riders were really rather impressed with the 15 year old Distanzia, fitted to their Triumph Tiger and BMW GS respectively.
The two readers come test riders will now run the tyres on their bikes on a regular basis, getting an idea of how they feel and handle in all kinds of situations. Once they have an idea of where Avon sit at the moment, they can work with thew British manufacturer’s design team to help them move forward to create what could be their most important tyre in years.
