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Offroad Tires - Getting Dirty With Style
By George Murphy
What to do with the inherent urge you feel every time you quick spot an opening in the brush, in a trail that may or may not lead to an off road utopia? What do you think you should do, you Nancy, slam the brakes, twist the wheel, apologize to whomever is sitting next to you for the fact that they will not be making it to their intended, particular destination at that moment and tear off road and into the liberation of street sign-free good times.
Well, wait, hold on for a moment. While it’s true that I do think that, for the most part you should do that, there may be a thing or two slightly over-impulsive to that off roading call to arms. First off, really you should drop your passenger off and let them walk to their destination (we are members of decent society after all). But, more importantly, consider if you truck is ready for the offroad.
One of the biggest considerations here will be what your tires are looking like. If you already have off road tires, then that’s great. If not, consider for a moment that purchasing higher tires while offer you greater ground clearance, while the shorter offroad tire will give you more traction. If your not already set up with an aggressively treaded
tire (and
at times even if you are), you may follow the time honored activity
of offroaders everywhere and air down (or let air out of your tires).
Its fairly easily understandable how and why this is come to be common
practice by those heading offroad. By lowering the air in your tire
and effectively lowering and widening the tire you can quickly and
easily multiply the traction you are going to have. The is quite helpful,
but certainly try to not go overboard with the air down. An obvious
problem to this is that the sidewalls of your tires are going to really
open themselves up to vulnerabilities and punctures.
There are
certainly plenty of other options that one can make while setting up
for heading offroad, so go check them out and figure which one is for
you. Some may fall under a category of pretty strictly offroad, while
others will really offer some advantages to both bring onroad and off.
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