Posted in Alaska Trip 2011, Product Updates on June 28, 2011 by mdfehrmann
Review and photographs by: Matthew Fehrmann, for www.cjdesignsllc.com and www.dualsportwarehouse.com
Let me start this review off with how impressed we are with the general performance of the Heidenau K60 Scout tire. What I hope to do is provide a good review including a collection of photos to share as they wore through our trip. Another important point I will attempt to make is the mix of conditions we put them through, the weight of our bikes, and the milage they carried us down the road. These are great tires and I will spoon on another set in the very near future.
The bikes we are riding are all 2006 KTM 950 Adventures.
Some of the specs to consider about our bikes, they are fully loaded for camping on the 2+ months and 20,000 miles we are spending on the road, we all have upgraded fuel tanks holding around 12 gallons each, and the riders weights range from 135lbs to 275lbs without gear. The rear Heidenau 150/80-18 is mounted on the stock adventure rim which is 4.25in wide, The front is 90/90-21 mounted on a 1.6in wide dirt bike rim either a DID Dirtstar Strong or Excel A60. Regardless of terrain we ran these at street air pressures, remember we need a compromise on milage and performance after all we are largely self funded in our testing, so the rear we ran at 36psi and the front at 34psi.
Some samples of the brand new Heidenau K60 Scouts mounted up and ready to roll.
After burning up some pavement to put some milage under our belt we found the tires holding up great, they roll smooth on the road, hold corners very well, and are predictable on the pavement regardless of speed or lean angle. There is plenty of side lug to start dragging hard parts on even the tallest of bikes so if you are into those sorts of things these tires will not disappoint.
We are about 2500 miles in for these photos and are almost at the ware bar in the center of the tire. once reaching this bar the added surface area should provide us an even longer life and that is exactly what we found as we continued to rack up the miles.
We ran this set to 7162 miles before pulling them off and if we did not already have a tire drop in Fairbanks, AK we could have easily ran these another 1000-2000 miles as long as the roads or trails were not too muddy or sloppy. We took them through a huge selection of terrain including but not limited to, highway, back roads, river rocks, hard pack dirt, gravel, and mud on the Haul Road to Deadhorse, in fact we chose to run these all the way to Deadhorse and back after stashing our dirt set since they were still performing so well. The high mileage and traction was outstanding and for a 50 / 50 tire this is the set to run in my opinion.
The tires the day we pulled them off after 7162 miles.
Ardie’s Set (275lbs rider)
Craig’s Set (190lbs rider)
Matthew’s Set (135lbs rider)
Some notes about the front tire and it’s design, we did start to see some cupping near the end of our time running it but it wore like iron and stuck to the pavement and hard pack without much issue. This is a hard tire to run in the mud and the slippery ruts but once you figure out that you will end up in the low part of the rut it becomes a predictable and truly ridable tire through all but the deepest of mud and slop. For our use this tire ran the miles as intended on a dual sport ride, and the total milage shocked us on fully loaded bikes. The Front K60 Scout we would classify as a 50% on road 50% off road tire through it’s entire serviceable life.
The rear K60 Scout hooked up on almost everything we could throw at it and is a better tire off road than the stock tire with no compromises on the street. I’m totally sold on running this tire through almost anything dual sport rides could bring you and we all agree the rear tire is a good 65% off road 35% on road tire until about 4000 miles then it’s a 50% / 50% tire through the end.
Would we buy this set again for a trip like this? Yes no hesitation.
Milwaukee to Fairbanks in 7162 miles.
Buy them at Dual Sport Warehouse.
Dual Sport Warehouse 
I’d seen these in Dawson City on an FG800 on a trip to Alaska in late June 2011. Thanks for your research, I’ll give them a try!