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I live in Michigan where the trails are largely loam with occasional stretches of pure deep sugar sand, as well as hard packed dirt (and the loam or dirt may have some rocks in it, and of course the dirt can get muddy, and the trails often have roots and in the fall leaves, sometimes wet leaves, all over the trail). My bike came from factory with Pirelli MT 320s which are, as near as I can tell, an all terrain intermediate tire that I've been pretty happy with except for one thing - when, on a loamy or dirt trail, I have to transition to pure, deep sand. Now the Pirellis are supposed to be inflated to about 16 psi but as near as I can tell most riders in Michigan, including me, ride with the rear tires at about 12 psi and the fronts around 8 psi. We reduce the air pressure as then the softer, flattened tires gives more traction in the sandy sections of Michigan trails. Now in reality, I may even deflate my front down to as little 6 or 4 psi, and rear to 10 or 8. Why? Because traction in Michigan sand is variable depending on climate. If it is wet and cool, even deep sand gives reasonable traction. If it is hot and dry the sand is highly unstable providing minimum stability. Of course, the problem with letting out so much air is that most of the time I (we) in Michigan are on loam or hard dirt, with roots and rocks interspersed, so it's unwise to ride with too little air in the tires. Now, no matter how experienced one is with sand, if is possible after riding a long stretch in dirt or loam to make a possibly serious mistake when one encounters the sand. Almost invariably my most serious mistakes happen in sand. It's usually a function of the front tire digging in to hot, dry sand or washing out. I want to emphasize how dangerous this is. If you don't often encounter hot, dry sand in your riding then you may not be able to appreciate the challenge that sand can be, especially when riding in proximity to trees (we have lots of trees and sand in Michigan). I was watching the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross race held at Southwick (on my computer) in 2017 and I was surprised to see how many (not all) of the top riders were uncomfortable with the sand at Southwick, and there were a lot of crashes. Aaron Plessinger took a bad spill on a fairly flat straightaway when his front tire washed out and then dug into the sand. It was then that it dawned on me that if the pros struggle with sand, then I need to be proactive and perhaps more aggressively seek solutions. I'm starting with tires, but my research raises more questions than provides answers so far - 1.) Pure sand tires, aka. "paddle tires" are too extreme for typical Michigan trails, which are mostly loam. 2.) So called "sand and mud" tires like the Dunlop Geomax MX12 are purported to be of a firmer rubber compound than a standard off road or MX tire, because the manufacturer wants a "firm" tire to to "dig in" and get traction in sand and mud. Conversely, they use a soft rubber compound in bikes that frequent hard surfaces like rock. The soft rubber is supposed to grip the hard surface better. However, here I (we) in Michigan are DEFLATING tires to get them flatter and softer, so why would I want buy a tire with an even stiffer rubber compound (here in Michigan, when riding in sand, if you can't depress the knobbies on your front tire with your fingers you have too much air in the tire - they have to squish, or you're risking the tire will dig in, or wash out, and throw you off bike). 3.) Sand and Mud tires don't have the regular knobby configuration, as they are designed to push sand mud and the self-clean, but then the problem becomes, if one puts "sand and mud" tires on a dirt bike and 80% of the trail is loam or hard packed dirt, is the cure worse than the disease? What's it like riding a sand and mud tire on loam or firm dirt? In short, while I could stick with a general purpose tire, and continue to deflate, it's those hair raising episodes in sand that compel me to seek a better solution. Any words to the wise out there?

Exploring beach and dunes in remote New Zealand on dirt bikes.

so I'm wondering about buying a 250cc 2 stroke I just turned 15 and weigh about 120lbs and am looking for a dirtbike coming off a Yamaha banshee. I will be mostly riding in the sand dunes but do go up and ride semi technical trails and desert riding. i've heard that a 125 will not have enough power for sand riding. would I be able to hold the bike up being around 5'9-5'10? what would y'all recommend I look for. (not at all considering a 4 stroke because of the costs of rebuilds)

Been looking at this rear tire called “WIG Racing Scoop36 110/100-18 Sand Mud Dirt Bike Tire” online. Thinking about buying it to put on my 2010 Husaberg 570FE for the dunes at Glamis. My question is, does anyone have experience with this tire at Glamis or in sand? Does it really work in sand as well or better than a paddle tire? WIG Racing Scoop36 110/100-18 Sand Mud Dirt Bike Tire

I'm up for a new rear tire for my 250 XC-F. Stock is a 110/100-18 Dunlop AT81. Ive got 23 hours on it and it's not chunking just slight rounding of the center section. The front is a 90/90-21 and it's holding up extremely well. I don't know if I should throw another AT81 on or try something else. I've been riding a mix of hardpack motocross tracks and Red River sandy off-road trails. My closest tracks/trails are hardpack. Here in Texas when the black dirt dries it becomes concrete and sometimes loose dirt settles on the surface and becomes very slick. On the other hand my favorite trails are very sandy but I drive an hour or so to ride them. What would your suggestion be for a new rear tire? Soft-medium? Medium-hard? Intermediate? I ran a couple Michelin Starcross MH3's and Dunlop 756's and liked them but that was several years ago. I'm leaning towards the Bridgestone X30 but I hear it's not as good as the 404 was.

Hey I have owned dirt bikes for pretty much ever I have had a Kawi, Suzuki, Honda and a ktm On everyone of these bikes when going to change the air filter If I have ridden sand I will find a few grains. I know hondas are nutorious for shit air filter seals and before I had the cage modified it was way worse. My seals when checking the filter seem to be air tight when removing and looking at the seal where the grease was its clearly been sealed correct. The air boot to air box is completly sealed with no leaks My question are, Is it normal to get a few grains in here? Is it posible these grains sneak there way in when removing the filter? Is there any other ideas on how this is getting in? Thanks guys

Okay so I picked up a 2018 kx250f the other week and took it riding and it was BAD ASS! I have a 2002 ktm125sx and it’ll whoop that thing any day! I’m going to the sand dunes this weekend and gonna use the 6 paddle I used on my 125. Should I be using an 8 paddle with a larger rear sprocket? I wouldn’t want my first experience in the dunes on this bike to be a bummer just because I had the wrong paddle on.

Has anyone ever used Rinaldi tires? I was looking on eBay for some new shoes for the yz and came across the Rinaldi RW 45. Looks to be a similar tread design to the old Dunlop mx11 sand tire. At 58$ I’m not sure how good it will be. looking for a sand tire and would rather spend 58 than over 100 on a new mx12 or a pirelli.

Anyone want to take a quick trip to Glamis before the season ends I’m on a yz450f and a ported/toomey banshee, and built quadzilla, and a stroked banshee with toomeys.

My Ride: 2009 KX450F Ok, took a trip to Silver Lake dunes in MI. Ran into some engine problems. Background: I had been trail riding this bike for a bunch of rides leading up to this day with no performance issues. New to me bike this April, sat for months, didn't actually start riding it until a few weeks ago really. I have never washed the air filter. It was oiled and washed by the previous owner though and he took care of it pretty meticulously and knew bikes. Leading up to my dune ride, even with a bunch of trail riding, still didn't wash the air filter (and still no engine problems). Dune ride Day 1: rolled in, in the afternoon, but didn't have time to put on filter skins I had. Rode for about 2 hours, no problems. Dune ride Day 2: late start, but did some prep in the lot before riding. Don't know if any of this matters, but the only notable thing I did with air filter was put a FRESHLY OILED AND WET skin over my air filter. I know, it should've been dry, but I didn't prep the night before, but didn't want to ride all day with no skin. I think it being wet/oiled actually attracted more sand. Perhaps a better alternative for sand riding is a DRY air filter and a DRY filter skin. Still protection, but sand won't stick to it. I don't really get why air filters are oiled anyways. I get that the idea is to make stuff harder to pass thru filter and make it stick, but it seems like a catch 22 cuz it will cause it to get dirtier cuz it's attracting dirt. Sort of like a lubed up chain will attract dirt and grime on it. Anyways, didn't really have any notable spills/wrecks (had some easy drops), so perhaps that's how sand entered airbox, but anyways. The bike worked great for the first few hours. Then, out of nowhere, it started to get boggy, or feel like it was bogging. It's FI, so it shouldn't be bogging, but that's the best way to describe it. The bike wasn't giving me any power. I figured (hoped) it was low on gas, so I parked it for a while, walked down grabbed my gas and fueled up. This was a windy day, so perhaps sand accumulated a bit while riding and then while sitting there waiting for gas. Gassed up, but the engine only got worse. Got so bad, I could barely go across flat ground in 1st gear (grades I coulda lugged EASILY in 4th gear and powered around). I mean, I was wide open in 4th/5th tearing around. I rode back down and cut it off. Haven't touched it since. I'm not sure where to start or how to troubleshoot on this one. I've never gotten into the airbox/FI system. I'm not sure what happened to the engine (sand in cylinder maybe, scratched walls, rings lost seal, maybe it's just a dirty air filter, but considering it's been ridden dirty without cleaning whatsoever, shouldn't be that). When I opened airbox last night to check for sand, there was some gunk around the edges, but to me it didn't seem like anything that woulda killed my engine like it did. The air filter was still relatively clean. Even the skin over the filter was relatively clean. Any idea what's wrong? What should I check? I'm afraid to start it and let it exacerbate problems.

Looking for one last Glamis trip before it’s too too hot hoping for last Friday Saturday Sunday of March or first Friday Saturday Sunday of April let me know if anybody’s up for it

Had my bike tapped out on pavement then she locked right up, held the clutch, came to a stop, loaded her up, top end looks perfect. Trying to find the next best bottom end to OEM standards.. I didn’t expect anything of this kind of nature but here we are and I believe it’s only the bottom bearing on my rod, Hope I can get some suggestions on getting parts and also is there any suggestions for tools (crankcase splitter, flywheel puller, bearing and seal driver) as I’m on my way to Edmonton tomorrow for a break the bank kind of day, any opinions are greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!

am really confused between the 250 rr racing edition and the 300 rr racing, I heard The 250 is very revolutionised and the 300 more lazy, any one try both of the bikes?!!! my ride is climbing sand dunes and crossing (freeriding) in desert

Well it's getting cold, and the only track that is not frozen solid is a deep sand track. Currently we have a Dunlop Geomax MX3S front tire, and a Gibson MX 5.1 paddle rear tire. https://www.dunlopmotorcycletires.com/tire-line/geomax-mx3s/ http://gibsontyretech.co.uk/show/products/GIBSON_MX_5_1 The boy seems to do ok, but I got a recommendation to try the Dunlop Geomax MX11 sand tire on my CRF250. So I got to thinking if there is something better for the CRF150 also? Boy rides big wheels...

Hey guys, Not sure where to post this but this morning, April 9th, my 2006 KTM 300 was stolen at the Oregon Dunes just outside of spinreel campground in Lakeside, OR which is just south of Winchester Bay, OR. I'm looking for help recovering it and offering a $500 cash reward especially if we can catch these bastards!!!