Back tire looking bad... is this normal?

[PizzaMonster]

Wow!  It really seems that tire mileage is all over the map. 

DesmoDemon, I'm looking at those tires and hearing you say you don't ride that aggressively?   Yeah...right .  Compared to who?   You live in a no chicken-strips world I see. 

Anyways....I ride a little ole low-power 800 with Bridgestone Battlax BT-014's.  A pretty good mixture of smooth highways, coarser surfaced sideroads and twisties.  I figure I ride it like a cruiser guy (well maybe not quite that easy).  My rear tire is well into the wear bars in the center and the tread surface is pretty squared off after about 4500 miles so it's a new tire just more than once every riding season for me.  The front tire seems to last about twice as long as the rear.

I'm thinking of trying the Metzler sport/touring tires next time as they are supposed to be a good mileage tire but I hope I don't notice a big decrease in grip.

[mtn_mnztr]

My Diablo looked a lot like that about 50 miles before I started seeing cord (some dyno runs took a SUPRISING amount of rubber off).

[AleksT]

Yeah tire mileage really all depends on what type of riding you do.  I recently got about 5000 miles out of a pair of Metzeler Z6s which I thought was impressive. But the performance was just mediocre when doing more sport oriented riding. I just spooned on a pair of BStone BT021s and they feel so  much better than the Z6s did their entire life.  Maybe when these wear out I'll check out the Michelin Pilot Powers. I've heard lots of good things about them too.

If your tires lasted you 5 years (dunno how many miles you put on them) then it's more than likely any tire you put on there will be more than adequate for your riding needs.

[Pedro]

5 years? Good grief!

I do a pair of Pilot Powers in a year, about 4000 miles and they knackered

[SheMonster]

5 years? Good grief!

I do a pair of Pilot Powers in a year, about 4000 miles and they knackered

Then I consider myself really fortunate to be upwards of 14,000 miles on my Pilot Roads.

[somegirl]

I rode 10,000 miles (including 3 track days) on the stock tires before changing them out for Pilot Road 2CTs (5000 miles on them so far, plenty to go).

Still had plenty of tread left, but they were starting to square off a bit from the freeway riding, plus I was getting a bit tired of everyone being horrified at me riding on the stockers.

[SheMonster]

Still had plenty of tread left, but they were starting to square off a bit from the freeway riding, plus I was getting a bit tired of everyone being horrified at me riding on the stockers.

There's no doubt that the profile on my Roads is square....lol...but they get the job done amzingly well. I think that the next ones I'll get will be the 2CT's, but I do so much distance riding that the Roads seem to fit the majority of my riding habits and have given me the chance to still play hard on the track and in the twisties while not compromising mileage...so it's a hard decision to make.

[Desmo Demon]

(including 3 track days)

I always love to hear people state that they do "track days", especially when talking about their tire wear. The difference in a trackday session between two people and different courses can be extreme. It's like, in this area, Carolina Motorsports Park will chew the heck out of the right side of your tires, and in a heatbeat, whereas Barber won't eat through a tire at the same rate. Then, you've got the guy's who are within five seconds of the track record and the others who are 30+ seconds a lap slower and can be lapped at least once in a 20 minute session.

It's like the guy that I bought two sets of tires off of in the spring. He kept telling me that each set of tires had seven trackdays on them, but by the pictures, I couldn't believe him. The reason I say I didn't believe him was that he said he did them on the same track that I've been on, and I couldn't imagine getting two full track days out of a set of tires before they won't pass tech inspection, and I'm probably a middle-of-the-pack intermediate group rider. This guy said he did track days all the time, so I was assuming he was probably faster than I am (with only two track days under my belt). I went and looked at the tires and had to keep from jumping up and down at the excellent condition of the tires. Two of them looked like they were brand new and still had small chicken strips, and the other two didn't look a whole lot worse. I talked him down to $37 a tire and went about my merry way. The tires had such little wear that they lasted nearly the same amount of miles on the street as brand new tires.

[PizzaMonster]

You know what I'm starting to wonder from these posts?

Does rider weight have as much to do with tire wear as the brand of tire or riding style?  I'm hearing some "lightweights" like Msincredible getting amazing mileage even with track usage and  "heavyweights" (like me) getting much less. 

Just a thought......

[Monster Dave]

You know what I'm starting to wonder from these posts?

Does rider weight have as much to do with tire wear as the brand of tire or riding style?  I'm hearing some "lightweights" like Msincredible getting amazing mileage even with track usage and  "heavyweights" (like me) getting much less. 

Just a thought......

I'm sure that certainly influcences the wear and tear on the tires. I'm running the Pilot Roads with 14,000 miles on them so far and weigh in at 160lbs.

[duc996]

Try riding the twisties oce in a while to get an even wear on the tires.

[NuTTs]

I haven´t read all 3 pages of posts but, after seeing the pics of your tires... 5 years!!! That is a very long time to keep riding on the same rubber. I´d stretch the tire life to 1-2 years max and change tires as it´s a hell of a lot cheaper than rebuilding a bike due to a wreck.

If you don´t ride very hard and want a decent compound on your tires try Pirelli Diablo or Diablo Rosso. They seem to keep well and are great for all year riding in all temperatures.. they grip very well. On my old GSXR750WX they lasted 2500km on the rear and that was hard use.

Don´t wait 5 years until your next change!

[DoubleEagle]

Is this a trick question? 

My bike EATS tires.  I go through 5 rears and at least 2 fronts per year.  If I'm careful I get barely over 2000 mi. on a rear tire. From my experience, if Ducati had designed the S4R/RS to destroy tires, they couldn't have done any better.

Thank goodness , my local bike shop gives me very good deals and mounts on the rim for $20.00, because I use so many tires per year.

LA

LA, you won't believe this but the last set of tires I had put on the " R " about 6 weeks ago cost me $180 just for the mounting. !

The shop charges 1/2 hour @ $95 an hour per tire change. 2 Pirelli Dragon Supercorsa Pros ( which are a step below the OEM tires that came on the bike ) cost me $ 688. $190 plus the cost of the tires.

I put 2000 miles on the OEM tires and they were ready for the trash. I only ride the " R " on the street.

I can't imagine riding around on tires that are 3-5 years old and popping wheelies.

Tires are the only thing between your bike and the Asphalt !