[cptrout]

Here are pics of the front tire on my '08.

The tire has almost 10k miles on it and 95% are street miles. Is it time for a new tire or is there still life left on it or did I completely miss the boat and am playing with my life by not have replaced it already.

Thanks gang.

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[Xracer]

I'm a cheap guy,but one of the things I don't skimp on is tires. If it were mine I'd replace it as a tire as worn as yours is not going to give very good grip. That goes even more if your riding off-road.

 

[admiral]

I'll have to agree with Xracer, looks like you need a new tire. Also, Its been several years since I changed my stock front tire, but this tire looks like it has a strange wear pattern too.

 

[jim]

Time for a new tire

 

[cptrout]

3 votes for a new tire is good enough for me.

Admirals comment on a strange wear pattern is concerning, anyone care to expand on that one way or the other. And of course thanks for your replies.

 

[Goodwin3]

My tire looked just like yours @ 10K miles. I was just guessing that it came from hard use of the front brakes while riding on pavement. I swithed to the tires with the more "steetable" tread pattern and have been pleased with them.

 

[heineken]

Mine had the same wear pattern. If you're only going to do mild offroading, I've been very happy with my IRC GP110 on the street.

 

[lizrdbrth]

My tire looked just like yours @ 10K miles. I was just guessing that it came from hard use of the front brakes while riding on pavement. I swithed to the tires with the more "steetable" tread pattern and have been pleased with them.

Check and/or change your fork oil.



Wear like that will occur after that many miles just from normal braking, but the severity of yours front-to-rear could be an indication that your lower legs are "bouncing" slightly (ever followed a car with worn out shocks and tires that leave the ground on bumps?), either from insufficient damping or a bit too much tire pressure.



Then again I'd kill to get 10 grand out of a bike tire of any description, so just keep doing what yer doing for the sniggling amount of difference it'll make.

 

[cptrout]

I think Hubba hit the nail on head. Will look in to the fork oil tho. Hubba, what tire did you go to?

Thanks again everyone.

 

[sinophilia]

I'll chime in and say change your tire(s).



For street riding, go for Bridgestone TW203&204 if available in your area. Less noise and vibration and much better under the rain. You will notice much more rear tire sliding on gravel/leaves/dirty road though... at least I do. These tires are as hard as a parmesan wheel!

 

[lizrdbrth]

Just for clarity, I wasn't suggesting that you try to get more miles out of that tire. It's toast. My suggestion was for getting a few more miles out of your next one.



Also, if you see signs of this type of wear earlier in the tire's life you can salvage it by turning it around on the rim.



As Hubba said, most of this is due to braking forces. After riding with many TW's of various years I noticed that most of the disc brake bikes show signs of it while the older bikes with more miles show almost none.



Mine has never worn stock tires, but my front knobby is already wearing goofy after about 2,000 miles while Purple's drum brake bike with 8500 miles on it shows no sign of it and still has 1/4" of dead-level tread in the areas where yours are sloped.

 

[elime]

What kind of tire pressures are you running? I let mine run low, around 12 lbs. on the street for a long long time and my front tire looked exactly like yours does. I replaced the tire and now run 22 lbs. The front to back wear of the center knobs, albeit only 3K miles, isn't noticeable yet.



Before replacing my front tire I increased the pressure to around 25 lbs. When I did this the wear on the low part of the center knobs was greatly reduced if not stopped and I rode the tire until it was almost smooth in the center, which was about 2K more miles. I am not recommending this but should you give it a try please report back as to your results. I for one will be interested.

 

[Goodwin3]

Same as Sinophilia mentioned.

 

[elime]

This is what my tire looked like while it was on the rim. It is next to my new tire which I hadn't gotten around to installing. At this point only the high points were wearing with the increase in air pressure. The worn areas weren't getting any worse.

 

[qwerty]

I've run 2 Bridgestones and a Cheng Shin with a similar p[attern off Tdub, and they all wore just the same. For street riding go with a TW203 or the Shinko clone. I have about 20,000 miles on a 203.



Bridgestone

http://www.americanmototire.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=735&products_id=979 $67.14 shipped

Shinko

http://www.americanmototire.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=735&products_id=5311 $63.78 shipped



If you want a more gnarly look try the Shinko 700

http://www.americanmototire.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=735&products_id=5264 $63.78 shipped