RUST magazine: RUST #44
Just in time for Christmas – it's RUST #44! It's a 120-page wonder, that's bringing you the best in enduro, rally, adventure and even heritage riding. And with a long seasonal break ahead it's great reading just when you need it
Just in time for Christmas – it's RUST #44! It's a 120-page wonder, that's bringing you the best in enduro, rally, adventure and even heritage riding. And with a long seasonal break ahead it's great reading just when you need it
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
LATEST GEAR<br />
Stuff<br />
BRIDGESTONE AX-41<br />
Contact: www.bridgestone.com<br />
RRP: check with local supplier<br />
Bridgestone are definitely a premium<br />
tyre manufacturer, but they’ve<br />
wanted for a defining full-on<br />
adventure tyre. Their Battle Wing tyre<br />
has been something of a 90/10 (road/<br />
dirt) offering, pretty much like a Metzeler<br />
Tourance. Their Trail Wing we’d call a<br />
70/30 at best, but still not a proper town<br />
and country. But now they have the new<br />
AX-41 – the Battlax Adventurecross and at<br />
last we have a real 50/50, perfect for superadv<br />
riders wanting to go proper off-road<br />
(but still ride there on the highway). As<br />
such it goes head-to-head with the likes of<br />
Metzeler’s Karoo 3, Pirelli’s Scorpion Rally<br />
and Michelin’s Anakee Wild – pretty tough<br />
oppo’.<br />
The AX-41s are pleasingly chunky, but<br />
still with a profile of limited height as tall<br />
knobs really don’t suit the heavyweights.<br />
Bridgestone have done their research and<br />
come up with a technology they call A-IW<br />
(that’s Anti-Irregular Wear) that limits the<br />
movement of the blocks and so reduces<br />
wear on the leading and trailing edges,<br />
so extending tyre life and improving the<br />
performance (particularly on road). They’ve<br />
also worked hard to create a block pattern<br />
that maximizes off-road traction with<br />
plenty of leading edges to cut into the dirt<br />
while leaving enough of a footprint to<br />
ensure good grip on road – always a tricky<br />
trade-off. While the first tyres out of the<br />
moulds have been for super-advs there’ll<br />
be smaller sizes arriving in early 2020 for<br />
lighter adventure bikes.<br />
THE TEST<br />
We fitted a set to our KTM 1290 Super<br />
Adventure R long termer– a stern test<br />
given its fair weight and 160hp power<br />
output. Coming from a 90/10 (road/dirt)<br />
OEM tyre there was an initial readjustment<br />
needed. The road tyres generally grip the<br />
road well and the only time they move is<br />
that millisecond before the traction control<br />
or ABS kick-in (on the road this is). You<br />
fit a 50/50 tyre like the AX-41 and straight<br />
away you’ll feel the tyres moving on the<br />
blocks. It’s every so slightly off-putting at<br />
first, but with the Bridgestones (as with<br />
other premium brands) you do get a decent<br />
compound, and I have to say the AX-41s<br />
ultimately stick well on-road, to the point I<br />
could ignore that mini-squirm and in fact<br />
reached maximum confidence in them to<br />
the extent I felt I rode on-road the same on<br />
these as I had with the road tyres.<br />
Riding in the Isle of Man a fair few strops<br />
along the TT course certainly tested the<br />
high end on-road performance of these<br />
tyres, and while I wouldn’t say I was riding<br />
with ten-tenths attack I was tramping into<br />
some of the TT’s iconic corners at a fair lick<br />
and committing bike and tyres to some<br />
sportbike style pressure. For the tyres – not<br />
an issue.<br />
On the trails, well, I’ve ridden the 1290<br />
and the AX-41s both in Wales and the Isle<br />
of Man and the tyres impressed in both<br />
environments. Off-road there is a limit to<br />
just how much I like to push a super-adv,<br />
but I have to say the AX-41s performed<br />
on a par with their competition. In all but<br />
the slickest grassy conditions I could ride<br />
with a fair amount of confidence. Like<br />
other adv tyres their limitations come in<br />
slick condition (where they just can’t cutthrough<br />
– they’re too wide, too shallow)<br />
and in the amount (or rather lack) of side<br />
grip you can expect – again adv tyres lack<br />
the edge of the sidewall knobs you’ll find on<br />
an enduro/mx tyre.<br />
By the way, in Wales on Bridgestone’s<br />
advice we settled on 25/25psi (that’s about<br />
1.8bar) for best grip off-road, but in the Isle<br />
of Man, with lots of sharp rock to contend<br />
with I couldn’t face the prospect of a pinch<br />
98<br />
www.rustsports.com