Iron Butt Rally Tire Selection

[Big_John]

Question.... Iron Butt Rally Riders.... They roll for 11,000 miles in 11 straight days.

What tire are RT riders choosing? Anyone know?


.....

[jesim1]

Question.... Iron Butt Rally Riders.... They roll for 11,000 miles in 11 straight days.

What tire are RT riders choosing? Anyone know?

.....

Are you sure??

The one we have in the UK is 1000 miles in 24 hrs, I can't help but think 1000 miles for 11 days is just mental, and must be ridiculously dangerous from a fatigue point of view??

[simbo]

Which day does the 6k service fit in to these 11k miles? And that's if it's a 6k service? Or a12,18 or 24? Where the bike could dissappear on the dealers service shop for a few hours?.

[Big_John]

Goodness you guys... How can this be an RT forum and you NOT know about the Iron Butt Rally. Many of the top 10 finishers in the past 2-3 decades are RT owners and riders.

https://www.ironbutt.org/ibr/


The 84,000+ members of the Iron Butt Association are dedicated to safe, long-distance motorcycle riding. Although based in the United States, we have thousands of enthusiastic members throughout the globe! One of our more popular slogans is, "The World Is Our Playground."
This web site is home for hundreds of excellent stories about long-distance riding. One will also find a vast amount of technical information regarding the art and science of long-distance riding. Our most famous document, the IBA "Archive of Wisdom", contains the collective wisdom and knowledge of some of the most experienced, seasoned long-distance riders in the world!

[Shuswaper]

Thanks Big John, for clueing in the uninitiated !

[owl]

Are you sure??

The one we have in the UK is 1000 miles in 24 hrs, I can't help but think 1000 miles for 11 days is just mental, and must be ridiculously dangerous from a fatigue point of view??

You're getting mixed up re a rally and a ride.

A 1000 miles in 24 hours is a ride. There are others which are tougher.

A rally is an event held over a specific amount of time. In the UK we have 8 hour rallies, 12 hour ones and our blue riband event, the BritButt Rally is 36 hours.

I am the rally master for the IBAUK 36 hour event and as such, ride all over the UK every year, researching interesting places to visit for the bonus locations that end up in the rally book.

[Dirty Boxershorts]

Question.... Iron Butt Rally Riders.... They roll for 11,000 miles in 11 straight days.

What tire are RT riders choosing? Anyone know?


.....

The winners of the 2025 11k 11 days Rally was a woman on a 2017 1200 RT WC. She ran a 15000 mile rated tire known to slay the miles on a R1250 GSA to Alaska and back to the mainland, with no tire change needed. It's a Dunlop TrailMax Mission in a 170/60T-17. It's a very heavy, very hard single compound tire that starts out with 12/32 or 13/32" tread depth. They take 200 + miles to break in, they are slow to warm up, and they are pretty slippery /greasy in turns in the wet. They are also not "Z" speed rated like almost all other BMW RT tires are, so you really can't do speed wise what the bike is capable of. They only have a "T" speed rating, up to 118 mph, less than the 130 mph "H" rating.