Dunlop KT6 : Ultimate Off Road Onewheel Tire

I’m about 500 miles in on my Onewheel and I found out I like riding off road just as much as carving on the pavement.  The stock Vega tire shines on concrete but lacks stability and grip when the pavement ends.  I’m looking for a tire that’s good for 50/50 on road and dirt.  The Dunlop KT6 looks like a serious off road tire.

Install

The Dunlop KT6 is a really hard tire.  Unlike the Vega where you can easily collapse the tire by squeezing it with one hand.  The KT6 takes a lot of muscle to collapse it enough to get it off the rim.  Once you can collapse the tire enough to get it into the groove inside the hub, it will go on with some muscle.  Taking a tire off the rim is like a puzzle.  Line up all the pieces and it will come off pretty easily.  If the puzzle pieces are not lined up, there’s very little chance for a human to muscle the tire on.  I will make a tire change post soon.

Once the tire is on the hub the two beads popped for me at around 20 and 40psi.

Break In Period

The Dunlop KT6 is a big tire and requires a break in period.  A brand new tire with the nipples still on will have a max psi around 10psi.  It will sound like crap and ride very loudly because of the nipples.

An easy way to speed up the break in period is just do the burnout method (see video).  You can burn off the nipples pretty quickly like 10 – 20 second burnout.

Once you burn off some rubber you can increase the psi until it starts rubbing again.  Keep repeating this process until you reach your desired psi.

At the time of this post I’m only at 16psi and this took a considerable amount of burning out.

Positives

Where the Dunlop KT6 shines is off road.  The stock Vega tire feels really unstable off road especially in the turns.  Every little bump in the dirt rocks the board side to side making it hard to ride in a straight line or make turns confidently.

Riding the KT6 off road feels like the Vega on concrete.  Not sure how Dunlop did it but it’s so confidence inspiring off road.  It soaks up all the little bumps and makes it easy to ride in straight lines.  Carving off road is so much fun!

Since the Dunlop KT6 7.1 is a really wide tire, it’s very stable at high speeds.  On the Vega speeds over 15mph you’ll get those high speed wiggles.  On there KT6 there’s none of that.  It’s very stable at high speeds.

Negatives

(note: these negatives are based on the break in 10-16psi)

The 11.5×7.1-6 version of the Dunlop KT6 is a really wide tire.  This makes carving harder.  The Vega is smooth and carving is effortless.  With the KT6 it takes more effort to carve especially under 5 mph.  The Vega has a more rounded edge so it’s easy to get on the edge and do slow tight turns.  The KT6 has a very sharp corner making it harder to stay on the edge.

I’m sure the low break in psi has something to do with it but it’s killed my milage.  On the Vega at 20psi I can get around 16-18miles on a charge.  At the moment I’m getting less than 10 miles per charge.

The Dunlop KT6 is a big tire.  It feels like the low speed torque has diminished.  On really slow tight turns it doesn’t feel like it has the power the Vega has.

Conclustion

It’s too early to say if I’ll keep the Dunlop KT6.  It’s a really big tire so it will take a substantial amount of burning out.  Even if I can get the psi to 20, it will always be very close to rubbing.  On breaking, hard turns or jumps will cause extra pressure on the tire making it rub.  It sounds horrible off road because any rock or twig that gets stuck between the tire and battery will make sound.

Stay tuned for part two of this review of the Dunlop KT6 once I get up to 20psi and a couple hundred miles.