As promised my write-up on the Pirelli Scorpion STR's.
Got these fitted at a small bike shop in Vientiane called FT Performance, 1 man shop.
Left the capitol early morning on Feb 08th on a heavily overcast day.
About 30 minutes into the ride south it started to rain and never stopped that day.
Not the best of riding situations without rain gear
Anyway, I figured it an excellent way to feel the new tyres in the rain even with these not bedded in.
It was indeed a long day soaked and cold at 19C ambient temps.
The next day visited one of the largest cave complexes in Laos at Tham Nam Non, near Kong Lor Cave.
This was a lot of mud after the rains and pebbles in the dried out river bed.
After this set off to complete the Tha Khek loop which is a combination of tarmac and concrete roads in a pretty hill scenery surrounded by karst mountains.
Spent the night in a little homestay with dinner around a bonfire outdoors with a couple of Vietnamese beers.
The next morning finished the loop and headed for the Mekong in Tha Khek town to continue along the river over tarmac, gravel and wood covered Bayley bridges to the city of Kaysone (Savannakhet) the first President of the Lao PDR.
After a good nights sleep, I set off on the new loop of Savannakhet (Xe Champhone Loop) visiting the monkey forest and the beautiful Hotay Pidoh Temple/library, this is mainly tarmac and some stretches of dirt road and gravel.
About 75km before reaching Pakse I opted to turn off to the right to visit the Phou Xieng Thong National Protected area which turned out to be a real off-road adventure of 7km on deep dust, rocks and challenging climbs and descents.
Long story short I can truthfully say that after 1,400 km's of STR riding these do not disappoint at all.
Cornering on tarmac is even better than my previous MT60 which I already thought amazing for 60/40 tyres.
In the loose sand, the front is "searching" more than the MT60's but on gravel and rocks, these STR's perform better.
All in all, these are definitely worth the wait and looking forward to more discoveries on this set of Pirelli's.
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