Are you willing to loose performance and feel for occasional, possible snow, when you can plan your trip around forecast?
I realize that my mind is made up regarding the tires, and in no way am I trying to drag this out, but I thought the following will add perspective to why, though snow is rare on our trips, it's a very real concern. And also why having snow-capable tires with "200%" better traction and stopping over the summer tires makes sense for our travel applications.
Check out this map for Red Lodge, MT:
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
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Here are two real-life scenarios that happened to me ...
Example 1:
Now imagine you're on a 2 week trip, and so you're on a schedule. You wake up one morning in Red Lodge, MT and you plan is to travel the Bear Tooth Pass up to Yellowstone, where you have reservations in NP lodging. You gear up for your motorcycle ride, and start south on US-212. It's predicted to rain in the mountains, and it does look gloomy. As you travel southward (up the mountain), the rain starts; it's not a downpour, but a steady moderate rain. And you gain elevation ... and the temps drop, big time. At around 7500' elevation, it starts to spit snow in with the rain. At 8000' it's full on snowing. At 8500' it's a full on blizzard; so much so that when I look in my mirrors, the only way I know my riding buddy is behind me is that I can occasionally see the headlight of his Goldwing flash my line-of-sight as we go though the switchbacks because his white 'Wing is 100% blending into the blizzard conditions; if not for his headlight, I'd not know he was 20 yards behind me. By now, there's about 2'-3' of snow on the asphalt pavement, and still accumulating. I am (literally) idling uphill in 2nd gear so that I don't loose traction and struggle to maintain forward uphill momentum. Finally, after an hour of butt-puckering terror trying to avoid slipping and falling, you crest over the peak at nearly 11,000', and head downhill. Now, you're full of fear for a whole other reason; not being able to control gravity going downhill ... you can't hit the brakes without a true concern for locking up the tires, and so you're tring to balance on the feathery edge of using compression braking in 2nd gear, along with a VERY judicious use of some ultra-light rear brake as you approach the corners. As you come down the "backside" (south side) of the Bear Tooth pass, you drop in elevation. Around 9000', the snow is tappering off. The precipitation is not stopping, it's just changing back to rain rather than snow. NEVER, EVER in my ENTIRE LIFE have I been so freakin' happy to see RAIN !!! The road is now wet and not snow-ice covered. And you continue your journey into Yellowstone NP, and that evening have a stiff belt of bourbon and laugh (nervously) about the day's adventure.
So, some might as why not turn around and find another route? Well, take a second look at that map. It would be, quite literally, many hundreds of miles to "turn around" and go back the way your came and attempt another route; that's time we simply didn't have. We do have jobs; we can't just sitt idle for a day or two and blow off the schdule. When you live in Indiana and are traveling in Wyoming, it's not like you can just get home in the snap of your fingers. Or, you could turn around and sit idle in Red Lodge for a whole day; again, blowing your schedule out and messing up all your subsequent hotel reservations by a day or two.
Example 2:
Similar situation, but this time I'm riding with my wife, and we're on the trip alone in a different year; no riding with another bike. And again, we're in Yellowstone NP. It's been a beautiful trip so far, cool but clear. We're staying in primitive lodging, and this is many years ago; long before smart phones. We wake up on our morning to depart, and find 3" of fresh snow covering, well, everything ... including the bison sleeping about 10' from our cabin door! Not wanting to be a statistic, I stood inside the door and starting barking (literally like a large dog) and finally woke the beast, and he got up and sauntered off. Then we had to go clean the bike off and pack our bags. And now we depart, only now fears are multipled because having a passenger (even a good one who knows how to sit still on the back) makes for some very lethargic handing and greater braking distances in the snow. This time we're heading down to the southern exit; towards the Grand Tetons. A couple of hours of white-knuckle, low speed riding really takes the fun out of the ride. There's no ability to enjoy the scenery when you're 100% concentrating on just staying on the road and upright.
After 30 years of riding touring bikes, we finally hung it up and got the MX-5 as a compromise; still very sporty and "open air" experience, but a tad safer and comfortable. Not a lot more luggage space, but a fair amout of fuel distance gained as well. We like the MX-5; it's nearly the same experience with a tad "more" of most things.
My point about weather and tires? With my MX-5, having A/S tires that, while they are not dedicated snow tires, are at least capable of safely progressing at some sane speed up/down/around mountain passes may well mean the difference between being stuck in some remote town (best case scenario) or having a dreadful accident just trying to negotiate some really steep and slippery mountain pass (worst case, especially if there's personal injury). Being able to simply continue forward momentum, and just as important, stop forward momentum, is a HUGE advantage in these "what if ..." scenarios. And they do happen, though rare for the season (it was early September in both examples above). Like I said, it's not like we can pull off the side of the road and swap out a set of summer ECS for the A/S DWS06+ while on a mountain pass. While the MX-5 has more room than a touring motorcycle, it surely doesn't have room for a set of four wheels/tires plus luggage ...
Simply put, it's not easy, and sometimes improbable, to "
plan your trip around" forecasted weather when you're a thousand miles from home, and your route is very time/distance sensitive.
If I give up 4% of wet/dry handling by choosing the A/S UHP tire of the dedicated summer UHP tire, but I can gain "60%" better snow handing control and "200%" better tractive and stopping power by choosing that A/S UHP tire, then that's a very good trade off I'm happy to make. It could, quite literally, save us from a ruined trip, or worse, true harm to our car or bodies.