• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

FKR - Fung Keong Rubber - A tire review and ride

ray_ray

ray_ray

Mini-Sponsor
First, the disclaimer: I do not sell this tire and I do not care if anyone else on this planet other than me, buys one. With that attitude in mind, now we play on the 2010 TC250 Husqvarna. Its a ~300HR rig with the current owner putting ~250 hrs on the bike riding lots in the province of Cebu.

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I've saw this tire here a few times and never purchased it as I thought it was just another cheap tire that would not hook up ... Found out it was made in Malaysia and I liked that idea. Before I moved here, I though many things would be less expensive, as per the web. Wrong. Most things outside certain food and some lodging, is gonna cost more or about same as you might be paying now. So prepare yourself if you ever intend to stop going to work.

The IRC tires many of us run here are reasonably priced with the larger, named brands costing well over $100... I can burn a tire a week, all yr round here, easily if I was that ill-responsible. It's just not my way to hand over the green-backs I did make and save over the last 20 yrs (?) so easily.

This tire costs ~40% less than the IRC tires I have been burning up here for the past 5 years. Even with my tiny brain, I see an opportunity to save money.

-

Here's the view of the tire on the rack that caught my attention. Its like a scavenger hunt here for lots of things ... ESP big-bike parts and tires.
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Here it is on my Husky. That 18" Excel rim is off my 08 TXC250. 19" tires\rims just do not fit well for me here. I really need 2-3 more 18" rims and get rid of the 19s...
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I think this is day 2 of using the tire after the Jarvis Hill ride.
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Its a 4.60 \ 18 size ... It looks a little narrow as compared to the 110\100 IRC tires.
 
This tire was used first over at a place I call Jarvis Hill where I've been trying to learn the proper techniques for dirt bike riding. Yep, after all these yrs, I'm gonna learn to ride a dirt bike, somewhat correctly ... So far, I've learned I've been keeping too much weight on the front end of the bike, too often, and run air pressure as low as possible. Sounds easy and it is easy to talk while execution of moving your body on the bike, on the fly, is not so easy to actually accomplish this along all sections of a trail.

Second ride was here:
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/a-shallow-ride-liloan-riders-2014.66605/

That place was really solid rocks \ lava rocks in many places ... I had the air pressure low and had my weight neutral or maybe a little to the rear ... Plenty of traction here on those rock faces and such.

Not sure what happened but the tire looked like this after that ride... Maybe the air pressure was too low? Not sure and I'm not worried about those lug rips unless the lug comes off completely. This tire will be tossed shortly due to the mileage I put on my bikes and a ripped lug is meaningless to me here, for my riding.
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Some video on some ~gnarly trails here... Its wet and ~slippery but has had at least 24hrs (I'd guess) of drying time ... Clay dirt changes quickly from too wet to too hard, depending on direct sunlight ...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t2DC1ANXYo


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This is another section of another trail\road I ride here often ... That dirt is moist and giving traction but slick in places when it has not had sunshine and inside some of those deep ruts.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1jTafNuOwE
 
This is another uphill section of a trail that is slick and rocky ... Many loose, rolling rocks here in places with jagged lava-looking rocks along the way ... You can see the opening right-hander is all big, embedded stones that are dry with a RV2 type outside line to rail. Most all this riding is on roads. Gnarly roads but public traffic is there and must be respected. Self-disciple is required for all involved to remain safe. Believe me, I did not come to the far side of the only known-universe humans can touch to be disrespectful, unsafe or cause harm to the locals, myself, or project an image of my home country in a bad light. With that said, I'm only human.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJDZbWb3VZE

I've got my weight ~towards the rear and everything seems to be hooking well for me. And the clutch lever has a couple pounds of weight on it just to help keep the tire hooked.
 
Few more rain pics before I hit the trail again for real muddy testing.

For the dog lovers ... Dogs and people get along well here. Dogs don't bother us and we don't bother them. Everyone just about has a dog, a guard dog ...
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New tin roof over my bike in the background... Ruby might have blown the last roof off.

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I'm worried about a typhoon and as soon as the rain and wind lets up just a little, the kids are back out.
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This is a short ride on a muddy, gnarled out road just after all that rain ... Perfect for what I'm doing today ... Its not flat, has clay and real mud in places ...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-Wptw98Gg

I'm really trying to keep the front wheel out of this and concentrate on the rear tire hook-ups in this mud and water and ruts .. Seems like the tire when straight about always ...Good enough for this dirt bike rider ...


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Final test ... The doughNut ... These guys here I think missed this dirt bike move that was so cool in the 70s...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVm20YTFCQE

Warning: You might get dizzy if you do a couple good rotations...


After I confirm the tire will last a few more rides before those lugs tear off, I'll release more greenbacks for more of the same.
 
A couple more pics of the tire after this last ride ... Rips are looking bigger but still holding ... Luds are still looking ok? That doughnut move is pointed right at these side knobs ... Might have to execute them sparingly.. I have a blade from here I use as a knobby knife but I'm gonna hold off on it for this tire I think.
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tire has the same tread as a metzeler uni-cross. but your copy seems to wear fast..maybe softer rubber compound?
 
Their web site makes no mention of the rubber compound ... I'd have to guess soft to immediate because I did ride it first on some hard dry stuff and the hookup was ok. And I thought it's a little soft to the feel ... So hard terrain is what I need traction on because once into the wetter clay, ~anything should hook up well enough for me.

I ran the tire flat part of the ride above because its sidewalls held up and I did not really feel it going wobbly or anything but you see the cracking ... I run tires here on a flat lots to get to a vulcanizer and no real problems have occurred ... So I'm not sure exactly why the side wall cracked so badly.

That tire could have been sitting several months on the shelf or maybe a yr or longer so maybe the rubber is damaged over time? I say that because I've worn out lots of IRC tires ... Not 3-4 rides but worn out totally. These IRC tires wear out differently from time to time so I'm guessing something varies on the tire itself ... There was even a time I was thinking a tire needed 4-5 easy miles on it before I started to rip it up and this would help prolong the tire life in the long run.

So I'm gonna ride this one and try one more before I make a final judgement ... I really hope this tire works...Its gonna save me so much $ in the long run.
 
Riding a tire that is flat...you answered your own question. You torqued the tire as a whole riding it flat.
 
That's what I'm hoping also ...I need this tire for the future

This is a 6ply tire... Is that what makes the side wall so hard?
 
My wife is from Thailand in the flat lands of the north central region. The plan is to retire there mother in law has about 20 acres of farm land a lot of the video reminds me of Thailand but what shocked me the most is that the dogs don't bother you I can't go for a jog there with out the dogs being a pain in the ass. You are a expat from where ? Happy Trails to you!
 
I had just enough tire to make it home yesterday ...
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I'm gonna try another one of these as I just can't believe a tire can be this bad.

The End.
 
C Shank said:
My wife is from Thailand in the flat lands of the north central region. The plan is to retire there mother in law has about 20 acres of farm land a lot of the video reminds me of Thailand but what shocked me the most is that the dogs don't bother you I can't go for a jog there with out the dogs being a pain in the ass. You are a expat from where ? Happy Trails to you!
Click to expand...

I'm an American ... With these guys remembering some of their ~recent history like Douglas MacArthur returning and all, alot of wheels are greased here by default for Americans and ~all foreigners in general. The Philippines are an American colony and these guys are respectful and grateful to the states to this day.

There are way too many stray dogs where but they know enough to NOT interfere too much or its curtains for them. Everyone pretty much has at least 1 watch dog :)

Happy trails to you also :) ... Have you actually lived in Thailand for any length of time yet?
 
ray_ray said:
I'm an American ... With these guys remembering some of their ~recent history like Douglas MacArthur returning and all, alot of wheels are greased here by default for Americans and ~all foreigners in general. The Philippines are an American colony and these guys are respectful and grateful to the states to this day.

There are way too many stray dogs where but they know enough to NOT interfere too much or its curtains for them. Everyone pretty much has at least 1 watch dog :)

Happy trails to you also :) ... Have you actually lived in Thailand for any length of time yet?
Click to expand...

Yes 2 years in 1999-2000 I lived with her I was checking her out ( 3rd wife, motorcycles came first ha ha !!) Thailand is not bad as long as you stay out of Bangkok (x3 New York ) Import fees are high best to buy there. Also a American . Thanks for the reply
 
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