The Michelin Anakee Road tyres are a no-brainer for on-road adventure bikes | MCN review

Michelin’s new Anakee Road motorcycle tyres are designed for adventure bikes and ‘design’ is the operative word. They’re essentially sports touring tyres with deep, off-road groves to match the rugged style of a globe-trotting off-roader. Michelin says they’re for road-only use and if you want to take to the dirt you should go for more heavily-grooved Anakee Adventure or Anakee Wild.

Adventure bikes are often bought for their comfort, spaciousness and looks and never as much ride up a dusty road, so conventional ‘blocky’ dual purpose tyres are a always a compromise. They can be noisy at speed and less stable through corners than dedicated road rubber.

The new Anakee Road acts just like a sports touring tyre and can be used in all weathers in all road conditions. They’re fitted to our Triumph Tiger 1200 GT Pro test bike here at the Michelin’s world launch in southern Spain. It’s a bike we’re familiar with having run one in our long-term test fleet in 2022.

What’s new?

The Anakee Road has a new carcass construction and silica ‘rubber’ for optimum durability, grip and wet weather performance. Front and rear tyres are dual compound with soft ‘rubber’ on the shoulders for grip and harder in the middle for durability and stability. It’s relatively heavily grooved (17%) to disperse water and comes in a plethora of 19in and 21in front and 17in and 18in rear sizes to fit mid capacity and above adventure bikes. Compared to the outgoing Anakee III, which has some off-road capability and remains in the line-up, Michelin claim improvements in wet grip, durability and agility with no loss in dry grip or stability.

On a test track

We begin on a gymkhana-type course laid out in a car park to show the Michelin’s handling capabilities. Through slalom cones and ‘mini roundabouts’ the Anakee Road allows the Triumph to be nicely light steering, accurate and full of confidence when you throw it on its side. The course ends with a 70km/h wet braking strip approach, followed by an emergency stop, where the Tiger pulls up with little drama or intrusion from the ABS. That tallies with Michelin’s claim its wet weather performance is much improved over the Anakee III it replaces.

On the road

Michelin’s test route doesn’t alow us to dig deep into the Anakee Road’s character. The surfaces are sometimes dusty, broken and the pace pedestrian, but then you could argue that’s real life. What we can say is road noise is low and the tyres do their thing in the background, unnoticed, which is probably the best thing you can say about a tyre. But they never give the confidence to really get stuck in and explore the Triumph’s almost Supermoto-like lust for corners. At a quicker pace and on better roads with more heat in the tyres we’re sure their performance would be better. We’ll have to put them to the test again in the UK where we can also make a proper judgement on ride quality and longevity.

Verdict

As it is the Michelin Anakee is a no brainer for pure road adventure bike riders. It has all the superb qualities of a quiet, year-round sports touring tyre with rugged off-road looks.

Cut through the jargon with MCN’s tyre explainer video:

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