Michelin Anakee Adventure Launch

Hello and welcome to Alex's Blog

Nick, the after sales manager, from our Doncaster store was invited by Michelin up to the beautiful location of Peebles, south of Edinburgh, by Michelin and BMW for the launch of the Michelin Anakee Adventure tyre and to test it out!

Lucky Nick, which I think will be his nickname from now on after scoring this trip, was invited to test these out as he will be selling them - he needs to be confident in what he is selling and to be able to talk with authority about these tyres. After all the testing he did that weekend he is definitely an authority now!

The Michelin Anakee Adventure tyre is replacing the Michelin Anakee 2s and 3s and is an 80-20 tyre- 80% on road and 20% off-road for more versatility. This weekend was designed to put the tyres through their paces by dealers from all around the country. I'll let Nick take over from here:

We started the day with a de-briefing and me and other reps from around the country were split in to two groups. I was in the off-road group to start with. We were given a course all about motorcycle recovery, how to pick up a bike, bike-handling, slow control and basics of off-road riding and off-road trailing, all on brand new BMW GS motorcycles with Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres on. This was held at BMW Motorrad Central Park with the briefing at the picturesque Barony Castle Hotel. I can think of worse ways to spend my day!

We were taught all about safe recovery of our bikes because the whole point of this exercise was to really put these bikes (specifically the tyres) through their paces! If we were really going to test them hard we couldn't be nervous about any terrain!

The Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres were originally designed around BMW GS Adventure bikes - so these were the perfect bikes to try them out on. These can go on any other bike though. The Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres give you the ability to go on and off-road without having to change tyres.

Three hours on the off-road adventure course was really fun. I dropped the bike a few times but I wasn't in trouble - this was the point of the course - they are there for this kind of abuse!

We went round the muddy course trying the tyres out - really putting them to the test, swapping bikes with each other to make sure we were giving everything a fair test. They had one GS that had Anakee Wild tyres on - they are still continuing with this tyre which is a 50% on-road and 50% off road tyre - to compare the differences. The anarchy adventures were a great tyre for going on road to off-road. I am a novice off-roader and felt very comfortable going down up steep hills etc. A lot smoother ride than the Wild.

After our amazing off-roading experience we came back to our picturesque hotel, had a lovely lunch, and switched activities.

Now it was time to get out on to the road.

We did a fantastically twisty two hour 60 mile circular route and stopped at St Marys Loch for a bit of sight-seeing.

Then we went to the Glenn cafe for a coffee and to swap bikes again! Off we went again, riding in to the afternoon in amazing surroundings. The views and the roads were breathtaking. The Michelin Anakee Adventure tyres transitioned perfectly to the road - it was seamless. This part of the day was on brand new 2019 BMW GS Motorcycles - not a battered bike in sight! Pure bliss.

That evening me and my fellow testers returned back to our hotel and discussed the day and the tyres. Not being experienced in off-roading before I didn't really know what to expect of them but with the (literally) crash-course in adventure riding I definitely gave them a thorough testing. I felt confident off-road - which is saying something. The tyres also transitioned beautifully on to road-riding - something I am experienced in. They really handled well. All of my fellow riders agreed. What a great day! Thank you Michelin and BMW for having me. Please note we stock and can get the full range of Anakee Adventure tyres. We also carry the full range of Michelin in store too.

Nick.

Until next time stay safe

Alex

p.s If anyone fancies sending me on a lovely trip like this I won't complain!