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Front tyre/tire wear question


dazzler24

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On 10/17/2020 at 10:13 AM, peteinpa said:

Since this went 4 pages without an answer I'm up.

I was going to provide a link but it's gone. This is not a new problem, and I like that it's been confirmed with driving on the wrong side of the road having exactly the opposite wear as here.

I've had such bad wear on the left of some front tires I've thought about remounting the tire backwards to even it out. I've pulled several fronts on my previous, various bikes that are worse then that.

This applies to driving on the right side of the road. Other places just reverse.  2 things happen that wear out the left side first. One is left turns at traffic lights the arc is longer than a right so more wear. 2nd is sight distance in left curves are longer so we ride them tighter and harder than right curves.

That's it. It's not the camber of the road for rain runoff. It's not an alignment problem. It's not a mounting or suspension or set-up problem.

EDIT: found the site, it moved.

Read till you go blind. 😂

Agreed. Uneven wear as depicted is PERFECTLY NORMAL everywhere in the world, and the explanations and physics are perfectly rational (but very rarely given correctly). It's just how motorcycles work and how tires wear out. And yes, it appears on opposite sides depending on whether a particular country drives on the left or on the right. I don't know why this information is not more widespread, or why harebrained alternate theories are so much more abundant. There's likely a psychology paper in there somewhere.

On dual-sport bikes, there's a similar PERFECTLY NORMAL phenomenon where every other row of knobs on the front wears deeper. Every bike ever on knobby tires does this, has always done this, and always will. Nothing is wrong; blocky treads always wear in a goofy sawtooth pattern, especially when used a lot on pavement.

There's always a thread going on ADVrider.com where some newbie is stressing out endlessly and needlessly because his front tire looks funny.

Edited by bwringer
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1 minute ago, bwringer said:

Agreed. Uneven wear as depicted is PERFECTLY NORMAL everywhere in the world, and the explanations and physics are perfectly rational. It's just how motorcycles work and how tires wear out. (And yes, it appears on opposite sides depending on whether a particular country drives on the left or on the right.) I don't know why this information is not more widespread, or why harebrained alternate theories are so abundant.

On dual-sport bikes, there's a similar PERFECTLY NORMAL phenomenon where every other row of knobs on the front wears deeper. Every bike ever on knobby tires does this, has always done this, and always will. Nothing is wrong; it's just how blocky treads wear.

Newbies then go on ADVrider.com and stress out endlessly and needlessly.

Sad part is tech's in big name shops don't know this. They send you on wild goose chases after all the possibilities like air pressure, shocks, forks, alignment, balance, head bearings, etc.

Been there with knobies  on my dual sports back in the day.

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  • 1 year later...
  • Supporting Member

Revisiting this thread, that I started, as I'm noticing the same wear pattern on the Michelin Road 5 front as before on the OEM Dunlops. i.e., noticeably wearing on the right side more than the left (left hand road drivers/riders here in the land downunder of course).

I've put around 11,000kms (~6,800mls) on these - just checked and that is around when I noticed the wear on the OEMs.

Thought it might be a good time to relink this article that @peteinpa had pointed to earlier in the thread but is no longer working.

I'm wondering if I increase my front tire pressure from it's current 33PSI would it help to slow the wear rate?  The article does mention that an underinflated tire will speed up the process but popular opinion for best handling is to have our pressures around 33/37 on this bike.  Or is it all just a trade off? - better handling vs better tyre wear.

Anyway, thought it worth mentioning.

 

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I've noticed a "funny" normal wear pattern on my front Road 5, I ran a couple of Power 5 fronts (Road 5 rears) and they wore in a somewhat similar pattern.  think it is because or the blocks on the tread.  My current Road 6 front has 6,600 miles on it and is wearing better but still similarly but not as pronounced.  I try and run 36psi but think this has been a bit lower maybe 34psi but ran thru 100+ days in Montana last week and it was probably higher.  In the past I've had good success with running a couple of psi higher than the recommended 36 psi and it seems to help.  Current Road 6 has way too many straight line miles and not enough curves but that's what you get when riding in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska.

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