Those your cokers Roger? If they only they had matching white walls.

 

I ran a semi knobby on a Honda streetbike a few decades ago, and it handled better on pavement than the stock tires. Had some enduros that would lean crazy on pavement, but those were also crossover tires, not true knobbies, but I think that's what the OP would be going for anyway. I've taken my 883 offroad where the dirt was hard and not too rough, still all first gear crawling, and was surprised at how well the sporty handled it. That said, it's a pain with that tall gearing, for any extended off road use, you'd want to use the smallest front/biggest rear sprocket you could put on it. A sporty wouldn't be a trials or rock climbing bike, but as long as it wasn't hanging up with that long wheelbase, it could do some pretty rugged cross country touring. Oh yeah, you'd have to get rid of the low pipes. I've tried cross country on some metric touring bikes, usually just doesn't work, but I did do some cross country in Texas about 40 years ago on a 45 hardtail - wasn't comfortable, but the bike could handle some pretty rough stuff just fine, even with fat street tires; I think the rear was a car tire, too, flat across the tread, not rounded. Why bother? I dunno, just always liked going where you'd never see a car. The world's a purty place where people haven't dug it up and paved it over.

 

Here ya go
http://www.cokertire.com/motorcycle/...wall-tire.html

 

Thanks Rog. Bookmark added.

 

It looks mean as hell!

 

Tires like these are decent on the pavement. This bike dips into the 9's in a 1/4 mile.

 

I run dualsport tires on my 06. I highly recommend it if you live somewhere where you hit the odd sandy or muddy trail. Yes the sporty is waaay to heavy to be a dirtbike; but dualsports change it from being completely useless in any kind of sand to being reasonably competent. Infact I regularly ride the dirt trails (slowly) out here in the desert where I live with no fear of getting stuck or plowing the front wheel too badly. The downsides are that on the road the knobly front tire causes vibration in the handlebar - although with an '02 you've already got that .... and the rear tire wears pretty quick.... about 5000 mi if you do a lot of asphalt miles (which I do)... the upside is the dualsport tire is a lot cheaper than the standard harley rear road tire so it really works out ok.

Tire specs
Front:
Bridgestone Trailwing 101 100/90-19

Rear
Duro Median 130/90-16

I think there are a few choices around for the front (I chose the Bridgestone bc it comes standard on the BMW GS 1200 adventure bike which is roughly the same weight as the sporty). The duro as far as I know is the only dualsport choice for a 16 inch rim.

Hope this helps!