Introduction
For most of us, tyres are just black coloured hoops made of rubber that are attached to motorcycle wheels. They are meant to roll with least resistance possible, offer the most amount of grip in every situation and be resistant to punctures. It all seems very easy but there’s a lot and I mean unfathomably lot to design and develop tyres. It’s something that struck me in the two days I spent experiencing two new tyres by TVS Eurogrip.
The setting
TVS Eurogrip has earned a good reputation for making some amazing tyres in recent years. Their Protorq Exterme is one of my personal favourites for the grip and confidence they offer. I absolutely love them. It goes without saying that I had extremely high expectations of the TVS Eurogrip’s new Terabyte DB+ and Duratrail EB+ adventure tyres. But, before we got down to testing them, we were shown around the factory to see how tyres are made and it was an eye-opening experience.
The entire process of chopping raw rubber, mixing it with chemicals that add the necessary elasticity, consistency and structure to a tyre, moulding it and adding layer after layer of compounds was mind-boggling. In fact, seeing how painstaking it is to make a single tyre, I don’t think I’ll ever have it in me to subject a tyre to unnecessary abuse like a burnout.
Having seen first hand how tyres are made, we then hopped on to motorcycles shod with the new Terabyte and Duratrail, and headed for a round trip from Madurai to Thekkady in Kerala. The 300-odd kilometers gave us enough insight into what these tyres were about.
The experience: Terabyte DB+
On day one, I got a chance to experience the Terabyte DB+ tyre that was fitted on the latest generation of the Royal Enfield Classic 350. These tyres have a block-pattern design and these are quite chunky in the interest of superior grip. The construction of the tyre is said to be quite robust and that should aid in puncture resistance.
Full disclaimer, the weather conditions we rode in ranged from mildly hot to slightly cold and these have a bearing on the surface temperature of the road.
In such conditions, the grip levels offered by the tyre were remarkably good. Most of the time was spent riding on the open highways of Tamil Nadu and the stability offered by the tyres induced a lot of confidence in me to sit at near triple digit speeds for the most part.
The inherent downside of the block pattern tyres is the amount of road noise they generate at high speeds. That said, it never got to the point of feeling bothersome.
The high speed stability aside, what I really liked about the tyres were their aggressive profile. The Classic 350, as everyone knows, is a heavy motorcycle and it takes some effort to steer a bike that’s running on stock tyres.
However, with the TVS Eurogrip Terabyte DB+ tyres on the bike, it wasn’t the case. The effort required to drop the Classic 350 into a corner was very low and this also helped during quick direction changes on the road leading up to Thekkady.
Overall, I was quite pleased with the performance of the Terabytes on the Classic 350 and considering their block pattern design, they should be suited in the rough terrains of Ladakh as much as they are for highways rides.
Speaking of highway rides, I hopped onto the pre-2023 Royal Enfield Himalayan on the way back from Thekkady to Madurai. This bike was running on the new Duratrail EB+ tyres and they were pretty impressive as well.
The experience: Dura trail EB+
The Dura trail EB+ is the company’s new tyre made for adventure bikes like the Himalayan. It features a parallel groove channel to improve wet weather grip as well as aligned blocks for improved mileage. While we didn’t get any wet surfaces to ride on, in dry conditions, these tyres were impressive.
Unlike the Terabyte DB+ tyres, the Dura trails are notably quieter on the highway. This improves the overall experience of these tyres to quite an extent. In fact, I was quite impressed with the grip levels offered by this “ADV” tyre at high speeds on the highway. The bigger revelation, however, was in the smooth and flowing ghat section just before Thekkady.
These tyres offer good feedback once the bike is leaned into a corner and I was never left second guessing about the amount of grip on offer. I kept increasing the pace with each passing corner and the more I pushed these tyres to the edge, the nicer they felt. Come to think of it, these are ADV tyres but their cornering prowess is something that a tarmac-loving guy like me truly appreciates.
Given the ADV application of these tyres we’d have loved to have ridden these tyres down a mud trail but paucity of time prevented us from exploring the option. Perhaps we could put these tyres through an extensive test when we get them for long-term testing.
Sizes, prices and availability
The Terabyte DB+ is available in the following sizes
90/90-19 – RE Thunderbird, Bullet 500, Classic 350, Impulse
110/90-18 – Classic 350 and Hero Xtreme Sports
The Duratrail EB+ is available in these sizes
90/90-19 – RE Thunderbird, Bullet 500, Classic 350, Impulse
110/90-18 – Classic 350 and Hero Xtreme Sports
Prices
The Terabyte is priced from Rs 2100 to Rs 2500 while the range of the Duratrail is between Rs 2125 to Rs 3675. These tyres are available across India, at leading tyre stores.
Gallery
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Royal Enfield Classic 350 Right Front Three Quarter