During our recent trip to Tasmania we put a set of Shin hos e 804 and 805 adventure tire on and F 800 GS we did about two and half thousand K on here and we covered pretty much every type of terrain you could imagine. We really kind of pushed it to test as much as we could really so we rode everything from nice big wide highway straight miles to big dirt roads single track and everything down to riding on the beach. Shinko honestly were quite a new brand for me we don’t really have them in Europe so it was kind of something that was a little bit of a surprise. When I first saw the tire it looked really good Shinko kind of listed as a 60% off Road buys 40 percent Road biased tire and that puts it up against some of the biggest adventure tires in the market when we’re looking at comparing this to rival tires we’re talking about ties like Michelin’s Anakee, wild Continentals tee kcat might as a 10 and plenty of other tires like that. Tires that are generally pretty premium products they’re really well designed and they generally do a really good job of.
What they’re trying to do is one really big standout with the Shinko. That kind of sets it apart from all its rivals and the price that the Shinko can be bought for in the US is massively cheaper than all of its rivals so we’re talking for a set on an F eight hundred GS about seventy five dollars cheaper than a set of continental tkc ATS one hundred and forty five dollars cheaper than a set of Michelin Annika wilds and even more for something like might a cz 10 set in Europe because we don’t really have them or have an official supplier.The Shinko isn’t trying to reinvent anything it hasn’t come out swinging with a completely wild trade pattern or doing something that’s very very different to what anybody else is doing. In fact it’s a remarkably similar design to Pirelli Scorpio.
It has that same kind of big flat block with a solid pattern across the middle style and quite small gaps in between the block pattern that makes it a little bit more visually Road bias than say a TK C or an anarchy wild. Typically you then expect that type of pattern to work quite well on the road. The Pirelli scorpions are really nice tire on the road. It feels real soft but it doesn’t have a lot of movement and you would expect that big block pattern with not much gap in between the blocks that have a lot of rigidity and it really does. the Shinko on the road is one of my favourite off-road bias tires I’ve ever ridden on especially on the F 800 yes now the F 800 s is not renowned for being a particularly graceful road bike when it’s on adventure tires but with the Shinko goes on. It was really good. It was much better than it has been on other adventure tires. I think the reason for that is because the tire doesn’t walk, it doesn’t move it’s very stable and it’s got a really nice profile. The compound feels quite soft to ride as well so you have a really nice feeling of the road and the bike feels like it pushes into the tarmac rather than being too dead. And because it’s not walking about the bikes really settled it means that you can ride to quite a good speed without who much effort. A lot of that comes down to the profile of the tire as well compared to a lot of other adventure tires the Shinko has quite a road tire style profile so it’s very progressive. And when you ride it, it totally translates into the handling of the bike.
Unlike a lot of adventure ties, the Shinko on that bike had a really progressive leaning so you kind of the Shelf that you get in the handling where the bike kind of holds up and then drops in that was gone. And for me that’s a really nice feature to have especially if you’re planning to do quite a lot of road riding on the tire. Now with all tires you’re always trying to find that balance between it working well on the tarmac. And when it working well when you’re away from the timer and what the shin code does really well on the road creates that compromise offroad. For me the Shinko strikes an awesome balance between longevity and performance. I did two and a half thousand K on it and rode exactly as I would normally ride I didn’t write gently I didn’t ride overly aggressive. But when I wanted to do skids, i did skids. When I wanted to do power slide, I did power slides. We rode single track, we rode gravel roads, we rode tarmac, I backed into corners, I did donuts on the road and the tire still held up really really well.
At the end of our trip I feel like it had another 2,000 K in the tire at least riding the way I was if I was a bit more conservative a little bit gentler in my riding style I probably could have stretched that to six maybe even seven thousand k if I really really needed to. And I think that’s pretty incredible for a tire that cheap and one that does such a nice job now as a standalone. If you were just going to ask me which adventure tire would I have if I was gonna do a large amount of road miles and still wanted some good off-road performance I’d be putting the shin cone in there. Is one of the best titles anyway when it loses out in the margins off-road. It makes up for in the price and the longevity now you know I’d have a hard time recommending another tire over this tire just because of that price. If price isn’t an issue to you then I think there’s slightly better tires. But if you’re kind of price conscious and you’re doing not two miles or you’re looking at riding somewhere that’s a long way and you don’t want to be spending a lot of money on tires, it’s an awesome option and I think you’ll really struggle to beat it.
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