See also: ‘Do-It-All’ 80/20 travel tyres

Most of the tyres compared here are what you’d call ‘street-legal knobblies’. They work fine on dry roads as long as you remember what you’re riding, but some may give you a bit of a fright if you don’t, especially in the wet.

There’s no free lunch: road-legal knobblies wear faster than Road Touring or Do-It-All 80/20 tyres – the reward is more secure grip on loose surfaces which may be more of a priority on your trip. It’s certainly less tiring to ride the dirt with tyres like this. Traction is OK on a dry road where there’s usually plenty to spare anyway, but at the cost of smoothness, noise, braking and perhaps, getting the pegs down. Up to a point modern ABS systems compensate for a knobbly’s reduced traction on road, but that won’t stop you sliding off a wet hairpin. I’d designate these tyres as 50/50 road/dirt use; they do the job on the dry highway and work better than anything else on the dirt, including sand and mud.

Tyres include Continental’s TKC 80 on the Tenere above, a discontinued Michelin T63 (replaced with Anakee Wild) on the fallen XRL, an original Michelin Desert on the black Tenere below.

The BMW Funduro anove has a Pirelli MT21 Rallycross which has been around since the 1980s. It’s a Mitas MC23 Rockrider on the WR250 (below left), and a Mitas E09 on the XR400 below right.

One time I spent the weekend in Wales with my WR on its original Bridgestone TW 301/2s (left) and expected the worst. Though they were at least eight years old they managed just fine in everything except perhaps wet grassy ruts. Not a single slide in 150 miles. And with a dense knob pattern they ought to last OK and made no noise that I could hear.

There are scores more examples of full-on, balls-out, off-road racing knobblies. But on a big, loaded travel bike their aggressive tread patterns with tall, widely spaced knobs will wear very quickly on loaded edges, causing cupping on the front (uneven knob wear; below) to eventually give a horrible ride on the road, as well as gripping poorly and squirming (knob-flexing) on road bends. Knobs may even break off at high speeds when a tyre gets hot.

These tyres can work on a light and low-powered bike like the CRF250L left (Maxxis Desert) but Conti’s popular TKC80 have shallow knobs for just that reason; to avoid flexing and cupping