Front tyre wear

[KingstonBiker]

The tyres on my road bike have covered around 1,300 miles. While checking them the other day I noticed very little wear on the rear (still looks new), however the front is starting to show it's done a few miles.

I thought the rear tyre was meant to wear faster?

 

[corshamjim]

It is.

I would guess if much of your weight is on the handlebars and you favour the front brake and tend to brake hard and ...

 

[Globalti]

Maybe your tyre is tired?

 

[oliglynn]

strange. Front tyre (& brakes) wear less for me. Perhaps check your brakes and see which you have worn the most? If it's the back then maybe your tire is indeed tired?

 

[mickle]

My Schwinn came with a front tyre which was almost comletely perished and it was unused and less than five years old - the other tyre is still on the bike, used regularly and now fifteen years old. Differences in manufacturing do occur - you might have tyres from different batches or even different factories. There are sometimes enormous differences between OE and aftermarket tyres though they may look identical.

Another possibility is that you've been running the front tyre at lower than optimal pressure, this flexes the sidewalls a lot which accelerates tyre degradation.

 

[Brommyboy]

Never worn out a front tyre! I have had one start to disintegrate though! The tread was still good but started to lift off the base.

 

[Davidc]

Very strange. I tend to do nearly all my braking on the front, nonetheless it's always the back tyres which wear out, presumably from transmitting the power to the road and supporting most of the weight. I can't remember ever replacing a front tyre as a result of wear, only damage or perishing.

1300 miles seems a very short life too.

Could be as Mickle says, down to the individual tyre.

 

[HLaB]

Very strange indeedy, all i can guess it was a bad batch. I've worn out plenty of rear tyres (and front after they became rears) but never a front one that only been used on the front. The last front replaced the rear at 3000 miles and is still OK 2800 miles later. The current front on the Kinesis is the old front of my Bianchi (tyres were upgraded at about 1500miles, so I'm guessing it has done circa 4500 miles without any sign of wear.

 

[Fnaar]

strange. Front tyre (& brakes) wear less for me.

Do you do a lot of wheelies?

 

[KingstonBiker]

I've had another look at my tyres and discussed it with a work colleague. The front tyre is a little mottled (uniformly throughout the circumference) whereas the rear is smooth. In both cases there is still plenty of tread and no adverse signs of wear.

What we think is that maybe the rear also went through the "mottled" phase and has now worn down further, so indeed the rear is wearing faster than the front as expected. The contact wear area of the rear tyre does look fractionally wider than the wear area on the front - so this also seems to confirm the rear is wearing faster.

I keep both tyres close to their 115 psi so I don't believe tyre pressure is an issue. As for wheelies unfortunately I'm a liitle too old to attempt one

I'll be keeping a closer eye on my tyres from now on.

 

[KingstonBiker]

Maybe your tyre is tired?

Ah yes, just spotted what you meant, how embarrassing. I usually blame my iPod autocorrection for errors but I'll have to take the blame in this case.

 

[Davidc]

I've had another look at my tyres and discussed it with a work colleague. The front tyre is a little mottled (uniformly throughout the circumference) whereas the rear is smooth. In both cases there is still plenty of tread and no adverse signs of wear.

What we think is that maybe the rear also went through the "mottled" phase and has now worn down further, so indeed the rear is wearing faster than the front as expected. The contact wear area of the rear tyre does look fractionally wider than the wear area on the front - so this also seems to confirm the rear is wearing faster.

I keep both tyres close to their 115 psi so I don't believe tyre pressure is an issue. As for wheelies unfortunately I'm a liitle too old to attempt one

I'll be keeping a closer eye on my tyres from now on.

Sounds better. Like HLaB my tyres usually go shop - front - rear - recycling, and a quick glance at my mileage log says that over the past 12 years I seem to get between 12 and 20 thousand miles total life from each of them.

I too am too old for wheelies.

The length of time it took my Excel spreadsheet to go through 12 years of records suggests I could do with starting a new one of them too.

 

[yumpy]

I've got the same at the moment, both tyres bought at same time, front fatiguing badly, rear OK.
Don't think its a wear/load issue - think its age.

Mine were bought from a local shop - no idea how long they'd had them.

I think the manufacturers should put date stamps on them.

Last year we took a brand new tube out of its box, which was around a year since purchase and it was cracked all the way around with the valve area completely stuck together.

Now check spares regularly to see if they are fatiguing of their own accord.

 

[HLaB]

I've finally sussed it out, this is your road bike