Dirtbike Tires 101
Everything you need to know
about dirtbike tires
Compound, terrain, tubes, mousse, and how not to wreck a tire mounting it. We do not sell tires, so this is just what we have figured out. Tap a section to jump in.
Buy on terrain. Everything else is second. Not brand. Not price. Not what your buddy runs.
The rule
It is backwards on purpose
Soft terrain wants hard rubber. Hard terrain wants soft rubber.
Go to any tire retailer's site and look at the filters down the left side. Size, brand, price, tread pattern. The only one that matters first is terrain. Pick that, let it filter the list, then start caring about the rest.
Durometer is a hardness rating: higher number, harder rubber. Its relationship to terrain runs opposite to what your gut says. In soft loam the knobs need to stay rigid so they can dig and hold their shape. On hardpack and rock they need to squish and conform to grip. Flip it in your head and leave it flipped.
The inversion
Bar length is rubber hardness. Read top to bottom: terrain gets harder while rubber gets softer. That is the whole trick.
Why we push on this
Arm pump. A rear end that dances. That ass-clench moment on a gravel road. A lot of what riders blame on suspension or skill is a tire problem in a costume. You can have a beat-up bike on great tires and have a good day. You cannot have a great bike on the wrong tires and have a good day.
Examples
What lives in each category
Not a shortlist of the only right answers. Just what the categories look like.
Every one of these has three more good tires we did not have room for, and riders who will argue for them. That is fine. The point is not which name you land on, it is that you shop the right category to begin with.
We are not picking for you
We do not sell tires. We have no stake in which brand ends up on your bike, and we are not going to tell you which one to buy, because we cannot. What we can do is explain how the categories differ and mention what we happen to run ourselves. Which one makes sense depends on where you ride, how hard, how often, and how much wear life you are willing to trade for grip. That call is yours.
Intermediate & mixed
~70 durometer
If you ride somewhere different every weekend, this is usually the category worth looking at first. Nothing exceptional, everything good enough, which tends to be what you want when you do not know what Saturday looks like yet. A lot of Southern Nevada riders end up here.
What ~70 durometer gets you
Motoz Tractionator Enduro I/T
Hybrid natural and synthetic compound on a heavy duty carcass with a dense weave ply cord, so it gets strength out of fewer ply layers. Motoz built it to run multi-day enduro on one set of tires, and it wears longer and takes harder conditions than its softer S/T brother. DOT and ECER75 homologated.
Shinko 525 Hybrid Cheater
The same sticky trials-style compound as the 505, but built for soft and intermediate ground instead of hardpack, with a wide self-cleaning tread that does not load up. If you want gummy-tire grip without giving up the middle of the range, this is the one. Riders who have run both tend to describe the 525 as the more manageable of the pair.
Dunlop Geomax AT82
The replacement for the long-running AT81. The interesting part is the rear: the center knob pattern is asymmetric, so mounting it one direction optimizes it for soft terrain and flipping it makes it a hard terrain tire. One tire, two personalities, no second purchase.
Dunlop Geomax AT81
The old standard, still around and still widely fitted as OEM spec. Softer carcass than the AT82, which testers generally liked better for rocky enduro riding than for flat-out racing. The RC adds reinforced construction, four nylon plies in the rear.
Hard terrain & rock
~45–55 durometer · "gummy"
Soft, sticky, trials-style rubber. These have largely replaced actual trials tires for hard enduro, because a trials tire's packed-together lugs clog in mud and do nothing in sand. Gummies get you the grip with usable knob spacing. You pay for it in wear life.
What ~50 durometer gets you
Shinko 505 Hybrid Cheater
Trials-tire rubber on a moto carcass with dirt bike knob spacing, so it grips hardpack without packing up in sand. Big, wide, gooey. Aired down to 8 or 9 psi in Baja it rides like a Cadillac. Testers keep calling it the value pick of the gummy class. Not a single track tire though: tall, wide and heavy. If you want this compound aimed at softer ground instead, that is the 525, up in the intermediate category.
Motoz Mountain Hybrid
Trials-tire construction with reinforced sidewalls specifically so you can run genuinely low pressure without folding it. Climbs like a trials tire but handles corners, creek crossings, sand and rock like a regular off-road tire.
Goldentyre
The gummies that put the category on the map, first ridden at the front by Taddy Blazusiak and Graham Jarvis. Race-grade grip, race-grade wear rate.
Gummies and mousse go together
The softest-sidewall gummies only really deliver at pressures a tube cannot survive. If you are buying into this category seriously, budget for a mousse at the same time. See the Infill tab.
Open desert & high speed
~75 durometer · stiff sidewall
Here the story is the sidewall, not the compound. You are bombing across open country and what you need is rim protection and stability, not maximum bite.
What ~75 durometer gets you
Maxxis Desert IT
The sidewall is a tank. Push on it and it barely moves, which is the entire point: run one flat and you might not notice for a while. Fair warning, it is a real bugger to install, and worse with a mousse in it.
Motoz Tractionator Desert H/T
Built for hard trails, fast rocky fire roads and desert hardpack with sandy variations. The tread is designed around off-camber sections, climbing out of ruts, and hard braking at extreme lean angles. Motoz pitches it as a desert race tire without the desert race price.
Soft terrain
~85 durometer
Wet loamy soil you can scoop up in your hand and throw at your buddy. That is a New Jersey or Kentucky condition more than a Nevada one, and yet we see these on Vegas bikes constantly. On our ground they tend to skid on hardpack, wash on gravel, and give up early on slickrock. Worth understanding before you order one.
What ~85 durometer gets you
Michelin StarCross 6
Hard as a rock. Grab a knob and it will not twist. Excellent tire in the conditions it was drawn for, which are not the conditions most of us ride. Worth knowing the StarCross 6 line runs multiple compounds, so read the spec and not just the model name.
Motoz Tractionator Enduro S/T
The I/T's softer brother. More traction, shorter wear life. Motoz designed the two to feel consistent so you can swap between them seasonally without re-tuning the bike. The rear is reversible: run it one rotation when new, flip it halfway through its life for extra grip and longer wear.
Adventure & dual sport
Land-to-sea, not durometer
These get described by their land-to-sea ratio: land is the rubber, sea is the void between. Something around 70/30 land to sea is biased hard toward pavement. Quiet, less carcass flex, stable on the road. A street tire that handles dirt, not the reverse.
What the land-to-sea tradeoff gets you
Continental TKC80
The long-running default. There is now a second-generation version with an updated tread pattern for better traction and stability, if you want the current one.
Motoz Tractionator Adventure
Deeper tread and stronger construction than most adventure tires, on a hybrid natural and synthetic compound. The tread blocks are designed to self-sharpen as they wear, so grip holds up later in the tire's life. Note it is now sold as a rear only, paired with the Tractionator DualVenture up front.
Two things people get wrong
Sizing and weight
A 130 is not a 130. There is no shared industry standard for dirt bike tire sizing. A 130/90-18 from one brand and a 130/90-18 from another are not physically the same tire. Do not assume matching numbers give you matching dimensions.
Weight is a real tuning lever. A spinning wheel resists being turned, the same way a bicycle wheel did when you tried to twist it as a kid. Lighter yields to your input faster, which is what you want on single track: the bike falls into a lean off the smallest counter-steer and pops back up for the next turn. Heavier resists, which is what you want on a dual sport at 60 mph when the road hands you something weird and you need the bike to settle instead of argue. Neither is correct. They are different jobs.
Do you need a DOT tire?
DOT certification is self-administered. Nobody mails tires to the government. The DOT publishes the criteria — testing procedure, skid pad, required markings, batch and date codes — and the manufacturer tests to it and stamps its own tire. So the only thing a stamp tells you is that the manufacturer thought certification was worth the trouble. Plenty of good off-road tires carry it, plenty do not.
Our position
We do not use DOT as a buying metric on a dirt bike tire, and we run non-DOT on every road at every speed. That is our comfort level stated plainly, not a prescription for yours.
One real exception
Titling a non-street-legal bike as a plated bike: some states require a visual inspection that checks for the DOT stamp. That is a paperwork requirement and a legitimate reason to buy DOT. Check your state before you order.
If you forget everything else
Buy on terrain.
Then compound. Then everything else.
Infill
What goes inside the tire
Five options. Three hold air, two do not.
Tubes
$4 to moderate Trail kit ~5 lb Flattable
The default, and the one most people under-spec
The tube in your new bike is roughly 2.5 mm and exists so the manufacturer could hit a weight target on a spec sheet. Fine for groomed motocross, bad at everything you actually do out here. Step up to a heavy duty at ~3.5 mm and you get meaningfully better pinch flat resistance for almost no money. Pound for pound we think that is the best value swap on this page.
Snake bite, explained
Four-part sandwich: rock, tire, tube, rim. Hit hard enough and the tire compresses far enough that the tube gets pinched and cut against the rim. The rim is not sharp. All your energy just arrives in one small place at once.
How we build a desert tube
Sealant inside, silicone outside. Puncture sealant heals a thorn before it becomes a walk. Silicone lube goopped over the whole tube means that when a rock tries to shove it into the rim, there is a chance it squirts out of the way instead of pinching. You want it thick, about corn syrup consistency — 5,000 cSt if you are shopping by the spec. It is the same silicone that comes in the little squirt tube with a mousse, just bought by the gallon instead. Never talcum powder.
Lucioli
~$175 ~7.5–8 mm ~7 lb
Possibly the last tube you ever buy
Two built-in rim locks. Seven pounds on its own. It is an absurd object and the math still works: one tire on a stock motocross tube already leaves it wavy and nervous, and this thing will go 20 or 50 tires without caring. If you hate flats but do not want the mousse commitment, this is the answer.
Tubeless insert
~$100 Trail kit ~6 lb Two air chambers
Best system on paper
An inner tube seals a dome against the spokes, and the same expansion clamps the tire bead against the rim. Effectively a rim lock running the entire circumference of the wheel. Genuinely clever, and you get infinitely adjustable pressure plus one-minute bacon-strip plugs on outer punctures.
We do not run it. Nothing against it, it just does not fit our riding, and we do not let it come on Baja trips because there are too many ways for it to end a day a long way from anything.
Tire balls
$300 per wheel 28–30 bladders Race only
Feel 10 out of 10. Usability 0 out of 10.
Independent air bladders you stuff into the tire cavity like tennis balls. Each holds its own pressure, so you can run some at 10 and some at 12 and do genuinely strange things with feel. Hit a rock and the energy goes into one ball instead of the whole assembly, which kills the rebound problem tubes have. A pain to install, a pain to line up, and $300 a wheel. A race product for people with a mechanic.
Mousse
$135–175 Trail kit: zip ties No air at all
A commitment, not a purchase
A solid foam insert, either a complete ring or a bag of chunks. Lowest maintenance and most flat-resistant thing you can put in a tire. We run it 100% of the time in every condition, and it is also the system we recommend to the fewest people.
The old Mustang test
Somebody says they want an old Mustang with a distributor, points and a carburetor. Whoa. Do you know what you are signing up for? Mousse is the same deal: a level of mechanical commitment and tolerance for fuss. Willing to take that on, you will love it as much as we do. If this section already sounds like too much, run an ultra heavy duty tube set up the way we described and be happy.
Heat kills mousse. Speed does not.
There is no magic speed number and anyone who gives you one is guessing. Ride 500 mph on ice and it does not care. But 40 mph in Las Vegas with 120°F ambient and 160°F asphalt can absolutely be enough to melt one.
For contrast: we rode Las Vegas to Phoenix and back, just under 1,000 miles on mousse, including interstate at 75 mph next to semis in 80 to 90°F spring weather. Tire was great. Mousse was great and ran several more tires after. Manage the heat and you are fine.
Brand order
For whatever our experience is worth: Michelin has been the most durable for us by a wide margin, holds its shape and density longest in storage and use, and the sizing across their five sizes has been dead accurate. Moose Balls next. Dunlop after that, good but hard to get and a little expensive. Plenty of riders will rank these differently.
Rim locks
One is enough in the rear. Instead of adding a second lock to an already fussy job, run an oversized one — a 2.5 on a 2.15 rear rim — so it takes a wider, fatter bite on the tire. Up front we pull the rim lock entirely with a mousse. With a tube it stays.
Installation
The installer ruins more tires than the trail does
If you take one warning from this sheet
Those steel cords running around the tire's inner edge are the bead. They do not stretch, and they are the only thing holding an inflated tire onto the rim.
Pry a tire on with bad technique or cheap levers and you can cut or snap some of those cords. Here is the problem: the damage does not show. The tire mounts up, holds air, and looks completely normal sitting in your garage.
Then one day at speed the weakened bead gives up and the tire walks off the rim. We have watched it happen on the beach in Baja at 90 mph, rear end washing all over the place.
The rider pulls over, sees a mousse hanging out of a wrecked tire, and decides mousse is the problem. It is not. The mousse did not fail and neither did the rim. The install did. The tire is scrap, but that same mousse goes straight into a fresh tire, mounted properly, and keeps going.
Get it off the ground. A center post with a round platform for the spokes is all you need. A five gallon bucket works. A 35 gallon metal drum works great. Anything beats the garage floor and your back.
You only need a machine with an arm if you run mousse. Those jaw arms are mousse machines. For tubes, three good curved levers and a stand will do it. The collapsible name-brand changers run around $500; Rocky Mountain's in-house Neutron is around $259 with nylon spoke rests and workmanship that is honestly impressive for the price. Both work.
Valve stem nut goes away from the rim, not snugged against it. Clamped tight, any tire creep tears the stem out and you are done. KTM and Honda ship them correct. Riders are the ones who overtighten. On our own bikes we skip the nut and run the cap.
Seat the bead properly. Overinflate first to pop both beads home, then check all the way around by eye and by running a finger along the bead line — you will feel any low spot. Add air until it seats. Only then drop to operating pressure, 13 to 15 psi is a reasonable dirt starting point, and only then tighten the rim lock.
If you are fighting a mousse, you are doing it wrong
It is work, but it should not be straining and cussing. Small bites. If it cracks or crackles you took too big a bite, so back off and take less. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
Balancing
Balance every wheel, every time
On a mousse, a heavy spot means one section takes extra compression on every rotation and wears out in that one place. On anything, hop is annoying, and it is worse when front and rear are out of phase with each other. Static balancing is completely adequate for a dirt bike; you do not need a spinning machine with a computer.
The lazy version we actually use
The heavy spot is almost always the rim lock. So skip finding it and put the weight 180° opposite the rim lock. Factory calibrated? No. Fine for a bike shedding knob rubber and picking up mud every ride? Completely. We also do not re-balance an already-balanced wheel for a new tire.
Spoke weights that friction-fit and lock with a grub screw are the tidy answer. Fishing lead wrapped around a spoke has worked for decades. And if your tire is DOT, that little paint dot marks the light spot — line it up with the rim lock, your heaviest point, and you have cancelled some imbalance before adding a single weight.