Off roading with 22s?

[Utah Rivian]

Hey there, does any one off road with their 22s? I see lots of 20s on the trails and no 22s.
I am needing to buy tires but am trying to decide on moving to 20s from the 22s or just staying with the 22s and doing the Continental A/T that everyone likes so much.
I do 90% “city” driving and any trail I do would be more of a dirt road. We have Electric Motorcycles for the crazy stuff.

Before I buy new tires I want to make sure I am making the right move as I found some 20s I could pick up.
Would love some of your thoughts.

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[ksurfier]

22" sidewall is slightly over 5", while the 20" sidewall is 7" (275/65R20).

Reality is that we are already working with an extremely skewed setup for offroading (ideally the 20" rims would use a 40" tire - which obviously can't work). Ideal is 50 sidewall/50 rim. [1:1] 20" is ~40/60 [2:3], 22" drops that down significantly to 33/67 [1:2]

As long as you don't mind an extremely rough ride and don't need to air down then suppose it is ok for extremely limited use... if truly at 90/10 I'd definitely want 20" for ~1,000 offroad miles each year...

 

[Milermore]

Hey there, does any one off road with their 22s? I see lots of 20s on the trails and no 22s.
I am needing to buy tires but am trying to decide on moving to 20s from the 22s or just staying with the 22s and doing the Continental A/T that everyone likes so much.
I do 90% “city” driving and any trail I do would be more of a dirt road. We have Electric Motorcycles for the crazy stuff.

Before I buy new tires I want to make sure I am making the right move as I found some 20s I could pick up.
Would love some of your thoughts.

I have taken my 22s on dirt and gravel roads with no issue.
I even did some ill-advised light "rock-crawling" and was lucky to not end up with damaged tires. I wouldn't do that again with the Pirellis, too risky.
I would say it depends on what a "dirt road" means in your area.

I told my wife I wanted to get the 20s so that we COULD do some trails. In reality, however, my ratio is probably more like 99.5% paved to 0.5% dirt/gravel roads. The tradeoff to switch to 20s so that I COULD offroad vs efficiency, noise, on-pavement performance isn't worth it in my case.
That said, I am not happy with the Winter performance of the OEMs and will look into the Continental to see if they are reported to be better year-round.

 

[pitbull-ny]

I've done an off road training course on 22s. And even being careful I ended up needing to replace one of the tires. I replaced them with 20s and that worked fine when I did the course for a second time a year later. On the second course another participant on 22s punctured a tire. They were more aggressive than me.

Apperars that the strength of the side walls is important. So you might look for 22s for off roading

 

[Ryanj]

I’ve taken my 22s on a couple trail rides but to be fair I’m in Florida so we mostly have sand and mud instead of your rocks. They did surprisingly well on our sugar sand. I did get it stuck in a mud hole on our last trip but I blame the driver. (Me) if you want to know how much mud fits in the 22s it’s A LOT!

 

[Fencer]

I went two times above Flaming Gorge Dam. Doable but rims are scratched.

 

[el_scorcho]

Hey there, does any one off road with their 22s?

Yep, I went to an off road park with a Rivian meetup and I was the only one on stock 22s. I stayed on the tamer blues and green routes but I was amazed how well it just tackled anything with ease. I ended up having to use 2 plugs and then, on the last run of the day, slashed a sidewall and had to put on the spare. 10/10 some of the most fun I have had and I now have the 22 Conti A/Ts on and ready to try those out, they seem way beefier to me, but no extra road noise. I love them.

 

[sub]

Sounds like it is more about the tire's picture resistance than the rims. Is anyone mounting more durable tires on their 22's? I see several options for 22" all terrain tires.

 

[zymolysis]

I've been off-roading (I have R1T 20" AT stock) with another guy who has an R1S with 22" stock tires (a couple of times). On one of those occasions, we did the Broken Arrow Trail in Sedona and came down the Devil's Staircase - his R1S performed just fine. If you plan to do a lot of off-roading, switching to 20" is probably preferable.

 

[ksurfier]

Sounds like it is more about the tire's picture resistance than the rims. Is anyone mounting more durable tires on their 33's? I see several options for 23" all terrain tires.

I would say the plain and simple answer is that there are no/few 22" AT tire options, add to that the fact that you need/want an EV specific tire and then the options are even less...I'd say the only way 22s might make sense for anything more than occasional dirt/gravel is if you can fit a 35" tire like a 275/60R22...then you are talking about an extremely heavy setup...22s offroad just don't make any sense to me, too many issues an EV truck...

Definitely get yourself a set of 20" Rims and and 33s for efficiency (or 34s if you get LTs).
My favorite size is the 285/60R20 (33.5"):
2 good options, Toyo/Firestone: Toyo should have a 34" EV option soon too...

 

[Nine_One_Six_R1S]

I've been off-roading (I have R1T 20" AT stock) with another guy who has an R1S with 22" stock tires (a couple of times). On one of those occasions, we did the Broken Arrow Trail in Sedona and came down the Devil's Staircase - his R1S performed just fine. If you plan to do a lot of off-roading, switching to 20" is probably preferable.

Did your try your Rivian with 20's going uphill on this obstacle? Looks gnarly!!

 

[zymolysis]

Did your try your Rivian with 20's going uphill on this obstacle? Looks gnarly!!

I didn't. There was a line of people waiting to come down. I went with a group of ten or twelve Rivians (and one Jeep). So there was that group, plus assorted other vehicles that wanted to run it. The Broken Arrow Trail makes a loop in the last section, which includes the Staircase. Most people seem to be doing that loop in the direction we did. Some day I'd like to try it going up.

 

[McMoo]

The Continental ATs should be fine on the 22s for all but intense rock. I’ve don’t some off-roading with them but mostly sand flats, and creek beds. The stock Pirelli 22s seemed very prone to punctures so not sure I’d use them.

See this Smoking Tire video at 22 min starting point.

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