Assessing tyre wear on slicks

[fastpedaller]

My continentals have tread wear indicators, similar to a car tyre.

[MikeDee]

How do I decide whether to replace them before another long tour?

I would replace them now if you're off touring, I don't think I got much more than 3-4,000 miles out of them.

I don't understand how you guys get that much mileage out of a rear tire. There's a guy on another forum that wore out a Rubino Pro in 1600 miles, and said he gets double that mileage with Continental 4000S's. I'm lucky to get 2000 miles out of a 4000S.

[Brucey]

brand new (i.e. fresh out of the mould) tyres are often much, much softer than ones that are about a year old. They wear quicker too. Tyres that are a couple of years old last up to twice as long (in miles) provided they don't crack up in the meantime.

cheers

[nirakaro]

Resurrecting this old thread, with the good news – I left my Rubino Pro slicks on for last year's tour, and they did 1800 problem-free miles. Plus a good few hundred more over the winter.
The bad news of course, is that I'm none the wiser about whether I should replace them this year, before setting off to Italy in a couple of weeks. I've whipped the back tyre off and stuck the digital callipers on it, and it shows at least 2.4mm thickness in several places. Looking at Brucey's old post -

Re the thickness of the tyre; the carcass is about 1mm thick. It obviously varies a little, but slick tyres without much tread are typically 2.5 to3mm thickness in the tread centre when they are new.
cheers

that suggests that they're still good to go?

I might replace them anyway, if Rubino Pro slicks were still around, but they seem to be extinct. I love my Rubino Pro slicks – any suggestions for what will be the nearest substitute, in a 26x1.5"?

[Brucey]

I'd probably swap that rear tyre for the front one and (having inspected the tyres for other faults) just carry on. In the absence of wear indicators (which BTW you can implement yourself when the tyre is off, see below) most people just carry on until they either see the carcass showing ( ) or they start getting too many punctures.

Once a tyre has done plenty of miles there are usually cuts in it; examining these cuts will soon tell you if the tyre has an appreciable tread thickness remaining or not.

Using (say) a Dremel tool you can gouge 'wear indicator' features in the tyre tread if you want, making them whatever depth you are happy to wear the tyres to.

Nothing in 559 is quite the same as a rubino pro but models from continental are worth looking at and of course there are always Kojaks.

cheers

[tim-b]

Hi

I'd probably swap that rear tyre for the front one and (having inspected the tyres for other faults) just carry on

I get that you're coming from a perspective of better the devil you know and the possibility of a new tyre having a manufacturing fault, but I'd avoid putting a well-used rear on the front and swap F to R and replace the front with new.
Rather than risk ruining a hard-earned holiday you might replace both and carry the retired front as spare
Regards
tim-b

[DaveE128]

I've found that on my cont GP4S tyres, wear is quite evident by looking at the profile of the tyre - the centre gets visibly flattened as they wear. Doesn't tell you how much wear is left unless you have a "fully worn" one to compare to, though!

[Brucey]

Hi

I'd probably swap that rear tyre for the front one and (having inspected the tyres for other faults) just carry on

I get that you're coming from a perspective of better the devil you know and the possibility of a new tyre having a manufacturing fault, but I'd avoid putting a well-used rear on the front and swap F to R and replace the front with new.
Rather than risk ruining a hard-earned holiday you might replace both and carry the retired front as spare
Regards
tim-b

My perspective is also that I'd expect to be able to wear a tyre more than 50% before chucking it in the bin; carcass-wise this (damage notwithstanding) goes double for tyres that don't have much tread thickness to begin with, because they are often built on carcasses that are also used for models with much thicker tread. For example Vittoris Randonneur Pro had basically the same carcass as the Hyper, but much more rubber on the outside. The Pro, when ~50% worn, has travelled about as far as it takes to wear all the rubber off a Hyper, more or less. Thus I happily use hypers (until they are either damaged or there is so little rubber left the rate of punctures has become unacceptable) with nary a thought about the tyre becoming intrinsically 'unreliable' in other ways.

On tour you might take a different view depending on whether you carry a spare tyre or not, too.

cheers

[tim-b]

Hi

I'd expect to be able to wear a tyre more than 50% before chucking it in the bin

Normally, however, "Post by nirakaro » Tue Sep 12, 2017 12:51 pm" and the OP "can't remember when (he) put them on, but (he) think(s) they've done about 3,000 miles" (in 2017). At least two years exposed to UV and wet, etc plus the additional stresses of a rear tyre (higher load and pressure than a front)
I wouldn't advise anyone to put it on the front because that's the end more critical to safety IMHO. Leave it on the rear or bin it (or swap F to R as suggested, and bin it)
Regards
tim-b

[Brucey]

UV damage might be a worry for users of (say) panaracers but not these vittorias; the carcass is nylon and it is pretty rotproof. If the rubber is perishing this is easily seen (remember I said to look for other damage?) and whilst that spells doom for some tyres it actually doesn't spell instant doom (or anything like it) for any tyre with a nylon carcass. If it did I would have died years ago; my most used bike lives outdoors 24/7 and is rarely without slightly (or very) perished (nylon carcass) tyres.

As an experiment I ran a rear tyre with a nylon carcass to failure; it was about 15 years old and the rubber was almost falling off it. It had been out in the wet, obviously cracked, for over ten years and had done at least 10000 miles. The rubber was so hard it had basically stopped wearing. Eventually the carcass failed, and the cause was a tiny bleb on the rim edge that severed a single cord in the top ply and eventually a two or three-inch length of that ply unzipped itself, at which point the tyre went out of shape so badly I felt it when riding. I reduced the pressure in the tyre and rode home on it, no dramas.

If you could buy new rubino pros in this size then (apart from the fact that new tyres wear up to about twice as fast as matured ones and cut up more easily too) then why not? But otherwise to chuck tyres (that you can't replace) in the bin when they are less than half-worn, based on false premises, is a bit bonkers.

cheers

[Witterings]

Why not just carry a spare tyre the tour??