Saturday, May 08, 2021

It ain't supposed to look like that.

 The Mrs and I did some errands this morning, and then it was off for a ride.  Did the T-CLOCS inspection.  My tires were getting a little worn, but I've already ordered a new set and made the appointment to get them replaced.

Took off up multiple canyon roads.  Had a great time.  Got cold, way up in the mountains surrounded by snow.  Came down the mountain, got warm again.  Lots of twisty roads.

Stopped for a rest and bathroom break.  Came back to the bike.  Doing a once-over.  Saw the rear tire.  Defecated myself.


It sure as shit didn't look like that this morning when I was adding a few pounds of pressure.

Near as I can tell, my daily commute, which is mostly interstate, did enough damage to the middle of the tire that going up in elevation and digging into the curves damn near became a catastrophic event.  I rode it nice and gentle to the shop that's doing the tire replacement, handed the key over, and said "I just rode the good off of my tires."

Ah, well.  I can't say I didn't get my money out of these ones.

6 comments:

p2 said...

Pretty good sign they overpressured after heating up. It’s worn down the center more than the edges so you were riding on that center inch ir so instead of the whole contact patch area. Unless that IS your whole contact patch area....

Ragin' Dave said...

I think the bigger problem is that I do most of my riding on the interstate to and from work, and so the middle inch is really the part that takes a beating. Add in some hard riding about 4000 feet above where I normally ride, and the damaged rubber either flew off or just disintegrated. I fill the tires up cold to the spec on the sidewall.

p2 said...

Take a look in your owner’s manual. There’s a factor of bike weight and distriibution the tire guys can’t know, but the bike guys do. There may be a different pressure setting and probably a +/- in there. The tires fit multiple rigs and the pressures on the sidewalls can’t account for all the variables. Or your warp factor 10 riding just peeled it off....😀😀 I could be wrong, but that really looks like the cold pressure you used is wrong for the weight, the tire got way hot and ballooned a fair bit,

Ragin' Dave said...

Well, I'll have new tires on the bike, so I'll have to do my research on those to make sure the pressure is good. On the old tires, there was a 10psi difference between the manual and the sidewall numbers.

p2 said...

Go with the book numbers. Just curious...which way was the diff? Soft tires get hot faster at highway speeds & that causes the rubber to break down faster...

Ragin' Dave said...

Sidewall said 41, manual said 31. The problem was that with all the interstate travel and me using 31 psi, I was getting a flat spot on the tires, both front and rear, and that's normally a problem with under-inflation.