Is this wear ok?

[Brendan W]

Think the tyre is trying to tell me something. Conti TKV 12 130-90 17 68V
Six months old with 4000 miles and noticed this only in the last week or so. Only recent change is a new pair of Hagon shocks. Most riding is two up at 360 lbs, 220 lbs solo. Pressure 38 psi cold.

[Crankthat]

Sorry as I cannot answer your question.
I have had some front tires start to wear like that.
Usually after much braking and high miles like what you have put on those.

BS 45s on a Seca II though and it is a much lighter bike.
The BS 45s wear quick also.

I wonder if your pressure is correct for the weight on them though.
There should be a code on them.
It is called a date code.
Chances are somebody will want to know what date is on them to help you out.

[Crankthat]

http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/riding/street/resources/tiredesignations.aspx

http://www.msf-usa.org/downloads/mic_tire_guide_2012v1.pdf

A bit of useful info till you get a good answer.

[CivilRock]

I think you're fine. I assume that's the rear? Which bike?

Looks pretty normal for aggressive riding. It's almost like "cold tear". If you get on the edge of the tire hard before the tires are warm it will tear the skin off them.

How hard are you riding those puppies? Track day? or just regular commuting?

-Kevin

[tkent02]

Run it until it pops. Or gets too slippery. Or handles funny. Or cracks. Or the air falls out of it. Or the date code gets too old.

Seriously that little bit of wear looks fine to me.

[bwringer]

Looks completely normal to me.

[Brendan W]

Thank you all for replying. I hadn't come across those sites, Nice and uncluttered, I will be bookmarking them for reference. I don't consider what I do to be hard but there isn't much in the way of straight roads hereabouts so your into corners pretty much straight away and some of the surfaces are Lunar and I tend to go in deep to the outside and come out sharpish so maybe I'm loading up cold rubber. It is the rear on an 850. The date is 13 and at this rate there is no way the date is going to be the decider for a change.
It's been a while since I last rode and I don't remember anything like this on the Metzlers and Avons back in the day and was a bit concerned I had the pressure all wrong or that 68 was too low a load rating.

[tkent02]

Probably what's hapening is you tend to lean the bike the same amount on each corner, we tend to adjust our speed so the bike has to lean at whatever angle we are comfortable with. Bike tires wear in turns due to the physics of how the wheel rolls when it's leaned over. Trail braking makes it a lot worse too apparently. The rubber has to twist as the bike goes around, as the circumference is different at the inside of the tire from the outside. It's the primary reason bike tires wear faster than car tires, that and the fact that going straight all the weight is on a very skinny patch at the center of the tire. Car tires don't do this, as they are mostly vertical.

It always wears at exactly the same place, so after a while it looks like that. When it gets cupped really bad it will make it feel funny, but for now it's fine.

[Brendan W]

Probably what's hapening is you tend to lean the bike the same amount on each corner,

Yeah, 'bout time I took those training wheels off.