Tyres wearing out suddenly

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

Why not change brand of tyre if those two are such problems.I prefer to get premium tyres as against bargain priced. Unlike on a car which gives a half chance when a tyre failure occurs,a bike is life or death,what value do you put on your life?

There's little danger, unless you knowingly chose to keep riding on a worn out one. Even if it was unchecked and you got to the mesh, you'd have an awful lot of miles (during which time, you'd hopefully notice the rear wheel felt a bit odd) to spot it. I usually notice it being worn to the mesh when wheeling my bike out of the garage, or wheeling it about when chaining it up, or (as happened last time) when stopping for fuel.

Also, I'd question the notion of the Z6 being a "cheap" tyre, either in terms of performance or cost.

As bikerbiggles says, the problem is all due to the tyre tread pattern. I was actually once on an IAM test when I the problem reared its head. I pointed out to the examiner when he asked about it in the car park at the end that he had looked at the tyres before the start of the test and due to the tread pattern, they had appeared still legal, in spite of being almost completely worn out.

[northwind]

I really don't understand the problem to be honest... Roadtecs don't have tread in the middle, but you can tell at a glance at the tread nearest the middle when you're running out of tyre. The wear bars can't possibly tell you what wear is like across the tyre, on any tyre, and to expect them to is frankly a bit daft... There's a difference between "legal" and "worn out".

You should replace a tyre before it's completely worn out, doing otherwise is like using wet feet as your sign that it's time to go to the toilet.

Yep my strada went rapidly down hill this weekend, and I noticed on my way up to Durness, the most north-westerley village on mainland Scotland, there was no tyre place there either... It looked way fine in the morning then about 300 miles later as I took a photo I realised it had v.litle left.

Found somewhere with a tyre that'd fit the SV about 80 miles away the next morning, pretty lucky.

Originally Posted by northwind

You should replace a tyre before it's completely worn out, doing otherwise is like using wet feet as your sign that it's time to go to the toilet.

In terms of basing it on guestimates due to mileage done/the way the profile looks compared to a new Z6 (which as I am down to my last one and don't have any spares in the garage, I can no longer do), I would have said this particular tyre looked "finished" about 1000-1500 miles before it actually was. That's a hell of a lot of miles per tyre to just discard. As I've said, I use my bike for my job and get paid a fixed rate per mile and consequently, like to try to keep running costs to a minimum (without it being dangerous). When my bike was a toy, I was much more prepared to replace tyres prematurely (and indeed, considered getting rid of mis-shapen tyres a performance enhancement in terms of cornering ability). I don't know much about tyres and I'm sure there's some reason they don't, but couldn't they put a (very thin) indented band round the middle of the rear tyre with wear markers dotted around that?

As an aside, for some reason, with z6s on my bike, they always wear out exactly the same way- front tyre on the side (tread is worn slick on the sides and stepped in the middle) and back tyre in the middle (on the slick bit). It's almost as if the hard centre banding on the front could be a bit softer.

Are stradas two compound tyres too then?

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Ceri JC

In terms of basing it on guestimates due to mileage done/the way the profile looks compared to a new Z6 (which as I am down to my last one and don't have any spares in the garage, I can no longer do), I would have said this particular tyre looked "finished" about 1000-1500 miles before it actually was.

So look at the tread right beside the centre- when the centre runs out of rubber, this will be well worn down. Do you have a photo of yours, I'm struggling to explain what I mean.

Originally Posted by northwind

So look at the tread right beside the centre- when the centre runs out of rubber, this will be well worn down. Do you have a photo of yours, I'm struggling to explain what I mean.

That's my point, on my Z6s, the tread nearest the centre on both sides was still perfectly legal (and then some), but the gap between them (the centre) was worn out. Sorry, I don't have a photo of the tyre in question (replaced it now), but it's essentially a slick in the middle with tread only at the edges, as per this pic:

http://www.tst-tyres.co.uk/images/RoadtecZ6R.jpg

[mattSV]

This was my Z6 on my SV1000 after I returned from last year's North/South.

Before I left home, I checked the tyre and it looked fine - there were no cracks in it. The tread was looking low, however there appeared to be around 2mm on the tyre wear indicators - I was more than confident that they would last the trip.

Around 900 miles and a puncture later (600 motorways/main roads and 300 hooning around North Yorks/Cumbria) they looked absolutely fecked - cracks and gouges out of them all the way round

[northwind]

I know, I've worn out 2 rear Roadtecs... And in both cases, the tread right by the middle was very obviously worn down. I did run one until it delaminated, because I wanted to see how long it'd take. I've seen quite a few with delamination in various sizes caused by overuse, and they were all the same- obviously ridden on past their normal lifespan.

"Legal" isn't the same as "not worn out" like I say. I've got a completely legal, completely square Macadam out the back, it'd probably be good for a few thousand more miles but it'd be rubbish to ride on- worn out. Equally, I've got an illegal Pilot Race which I could use on the road for another thousand without the slightest risk. Both have plants growing in them.

The law on tyre depth isn't intended to tell you when to replace them. It's an absolute minimum which has to be left incredibly vague, so as to cover all tyres, and it's there to deal with people who choose not to replace their tyresw when they're worn out... But it doesn't follow that an illegal tyre is unsafe, or that a legal tyre is safe. Remember, that law varies from country to country, if you take a bald tyre to america where it may be legal it's not suddenly any better at dispersing puddles.

Metzeler, like most tyre companies, recommend that you replace any tyre with less than 2mm of tread- from everything I've seen the Roadtecs will be under that before they do their sudden death trick. Mine certainly was when I pushed it, and both of those pics are too.

Ah hah, a picture! Courtesy of MattSV, amazing what you find on google





Here's another off a Fazer forum:



And here's a Diablo doing the same:



Now, all four are obviously worn out, from the delamination. But the tread beside the slick section tells the story, in all cases the rider's ignored the fact that the tread's worn right down. In fact, I think in all cases the rider claimed "I had plenty of tread left" . If my understanding of the extremely wooly tyre law for bikes is correct then all were actually illegal- if it is, then the Strada and Diablo both come into the category of tyres that don't meet the 1.6mm standard when new, and so must instead meet the 1mm across whole tread standard.

Certainly none have 2mm of tread across the whole tread.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by mattSV

This was my Z6 on my SV1000 after I returned from last year's North/South.

Just the man. Even without the cracks, that tyre's very obviously completely worn out, just look at the tread! It's worn to practically nothing. The TWIs are on the shoulders, how can they tell you anything about the wear in the centre?