Avon Venom tire wear questions?

[jarrejx]

I purchased MyPalomino in March, 2008 w/ 32,700 miles. The Avon Venom tires were advertised as "like new" and indeed appeared that way. Several hundred miles ago, I started to notice a disturbing wear pattern on my front tire. The left hand side of the tire was wearing much more rapidly than the right side. The bike's clock recently rolled past the 42K mark and I came to the conclusion that I could no longer ignore the wear and I ordered new tires. (see pix) I've been waiting to get whitewalls anyway.

 

Ordered a set of Dunlop 404s from Motorcycle Superstore on the last day for the VR discount and received them on Friday, HOWEVER, I want to understand the geometry of this type of tire wear. Is it normal for the Avon Venom front tire to show this type of wear w/ less than 10K miles? Could this type of wear have been alleviated w/ the installation of a center stand or garaging the bike w/ wheels lifted off ground?

 

I read similar threads discussing, among other things, the geometry of left hand turns and the added wear on tires. Could that be a contributing factor? The front wheel appears to be turning true, HOWEVER, there could alignment issues. How would I know?

 

I want to avoid this kind of wear on the new Dunlops, if possible. Any input would be appreciated. The first pic is of the tire's condition when I purchased the bike. BTW, the rear tire looks like it could go another 20K miles or more.

[Kregerdoodle]

I have noticed that around here alot of the wear on the left side of the tire is due to the way the center of the roads are " humped" for the rain to run off. I do not know of a way to allighn ( M/S ) the wheels on the bike. Others will join in on this... let us know what the verdict is..

 

 

K

[Badacer]

pretty sure its nothing to do with centre stand, Kbay has a good point about road camber though if this was the case I would expect similar wear on rear tyre. but I think its more down to riding style, are you more comfortable on left hand turns and perhaps braking a bit later on these bends. I dont think its a alignment issue you would have more problems than just a worn tyre. Hard to see but tyre doesnt seem feathered or scrubed just worn down by someone enjoying themselves a little too much

[gibvel]

Considerably more left turns than right turns?

[flb_78]

First of all, you don't know how many wiles are on the tires. You bought the bike with "like new" tires, not new tires. Those tires could of had 5000 miles on them easily and looked "like new". Several members will confirm this. Avons seemto wear like iron until the last 2000 miles and then just disappear.

 

And I agree with the above posts about the road crown being the most likely culprit.

 

It could also be that you may sit to one side of the bike and cause it to lean just a bit and not even notice it. I know I do.

[captnmidnight]

I too think it could be caused by driving more aggressively on left turns than on right turns. I know that when I used to race dirt bikes, I allways felt more comfortable on left turns because when you put your left leg out in front of you while cornering (to serve as an outrigger),your right foot was still on the brake pedal so you felt as though you had complete control of braking.However with your right foot out in front of you ,,you only had control of the front brake. Therefore I went faster on left bends. Is it possible for this to carry over to an rsv??on the street?? I would assume if your a peg scaper that it would indeed carry over from dirt to the street. speaking only for myself I still feel more comfortable hammering through left turns as opposed to right. My 2 cents worth.

[CMIKE]

I am not so sure that the crown of the road can cause that much more wear on one side of the tire. I think I would look for a bent axle or possibly a front fork tweeked or maybe a steering bearing wore out just to make sure.

I am surprized that you would be going to the dunlop 404 after running the Avon. I am pretty sure you will see a difference in the handling of the bike.

 

Good luck and I hope you find the problem and it is not serious.

[jarrejx]

pretty sure its nothing to do with centre stand, Kbay has a good point about road camber though if this was the case I would expect similar wear on rear tyre. but I think its more down to riding style, are you more comfortable on left hand turns and perhaps braking a bit later on these bends. I dont think its a alignment issue you would have more problems than just a worn tyre. Hard to see but tyre doesnt seem feathered or scrubed just worn down by someone enjoying themselves a little too much

 

You could be right about the riding style, although I am equally comfortable with turning either way, it's just that the left hand turns are the urban rider's closest thing to a twistie. I may put more into the left hand turns than necessary.

 

When I changed out the front tire this weekend the axle looked fine. It rolled true on the garage floor and the wheel spun evenly when I did the "poor man's tire balance". Entire wheel mounted without any problem and fork appears straight. I will do some studying and check the steering bearings you mentioned.

 

CMIK not sure

I am not so sure that the crown of the road can cause that much more wear on one side of the tire. I think I would look for a bent axle or possibly a front fork tweeked or maybe a steering bearing wore out just to make sure.

I am surprized that you would be going to the dunlop 404 after running the Avon. I am pretty sure you will see a difference in the handling of the bike.

 

I expected switching from Avon to Dunlop 404s would raise some eyebrows. I wanted the E3s, but could not find them in a whitewall. I completely enjoy the handling of the Venoms but I have read several posts recently about premature wear and was not satisfied with my mileage on the front tire. My brother in law (YamaQman) rides the Dunlop 404s WWW on his 01 RSV and I enjoy the ride on his bike as well, even at slow speed. Thought I would give the 404s a try as a sort of comparison. This may tell me if the wear is more of my riding style or the brand of tire. (Hopefully it isn't anything more serious).

 

In addition, I wanted the wide whitewall in the stock size tire and the Dunlop looks better to me. For a total investment of $203.00 (both front & rear from Motorcycle Superstore), it's worth the experiment. If wear is consistent w/ Venoms, I'll be back. I took a short ride yesterday on the 404s and felt the difference in handling but it was not a bad difference. Just different. I went to my favorite parking lot practice course and was able to do all the manuevers I could perform on the Venoms. Haven't tried them on open road yet, maybe sometime this weekend.

 

Thanks to all for taking the time to give me your input. I'll post what I find out concerning the bearings. In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying those urban twisties.

 

Jerry

[StarQ]

Crowned roads can, in fact, account for left-hand side tire wear. This is because most roads are crowned so most of your driving is the equivalent of leaning slightly left all the time.

 

 

I am not so sure that the crown of the road can cause that much more wear on one side of the tire.

 

Something else many riders don't realize is the Coriolis effect makes left and right turns feel different. Check out this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect

[N3FOL]

That does makes sense to me with the difference on road patterns and riding style. I do pretty much everything from left hand turns to right hand turns...Going to work, the ramp is a long left hand curve...going home is a long right hand turn, so I guess it evens out.

 

My front tire does show wear on the left and right sides and less on the center. I speculate that this may be due to normal riding / turn conditions. As far as the pic is concerned, I think the wear is normal with no serious issues. If that was my tire, I probably had replaced it a few hundred miles ago.

 

Ride safe.

[V7Goose]

First, virtually ALL front tires on bikes primarily ridden in countries where we ride on the right side of the road will exhibit some greater wear on the left side. But this is so slight it is seldom visible unless the tire is totally worn down so that left side tread starts to completely disappear while the right side, while definitely worn out, still shows the pattern. I have several front tires from different bikes in the back of my truck right now where that wear pattern is discernible. The cause of this additional wear is often debated, but AFAIK, no one really knows for sure what causes it. As many others have already posted, the most speculation is about crowned roads and longer lines through left turns.

 

Unfortunately, the pictures show a tire that, IMHO, absolutely could not get that way unless either the forks or frame are damaged. It is a sad fact of life that new tires are often installed on any used vehicle to conceal problems that clearly show up as strange tire wear. It is not honest, but the potential buyers always seem to think they are getting something extra for their money instead of being cheated. By the time the problems show up in the tire wear, the seller is long long gone, so there is little risk in doing it.

 

If the bike was mine, I'd probably start by making about 10,000 side-by-side measurements with a known good RSV in an attempt to find something out of whack as a starting point. But the reality is that you really need to take the bike to a good frame shop and have them do the checkout.

Goose

[frogmaster]

First, virtually ALL front tires on bikes primarily ridden in countries where we ride on the right side of the road will exhibit some greater wear on the left side. But this is so slight it is seldom visible unless the tire is totally worn down so that left side tread starts to completely disappear while the right side, while definitely worn out, still shows the pattern. I have several front tires from different bikes in the back of my truck right now where that wear pattern is discernible. The cause of this additional wear is often debated, but AFAIK, no one really knows for sure what causes it. As many others have already posted, the most speculation is about crowned roads and longer lines through left turns.

 

Unfortunately, the pictures show a tire that, IMHO, absolutely could not get that way unless either the forks or frame are damaged. It is a sad fact of life that new tires are often installed on any used vehicle to conceal problems that clearly show up as strange tire wear. It is not honest, but the potential buyers always seem to think they are getting something extra for their money instead of being cheated. By the time the problems show up in the tire wear, the seller is long long gone, so there is little risk in doing it.

 

If the bike was mine, I'd probably start by making about 10,000 side-by-side measurements with a known good RSV in an attempt to find something out of whack as a starting point. But the reality is that you really need to take the bike to a good frame shop and have them do the checkout.

Goose

 

I have to agree. Very sad but very true using "almost new tires" to cover up past damages just ask any used car stealer.

[FuzzyRSTD]

This looks like normal wear to me and my riding and changing tires for the past 30 yrs. The front tire has probably worn out two rear tires as almost all motorcycle tires do. Tire pressure is the most important and must be maintained regulary. I am saying that the other guy may not have checked pressure very often.I love my Avons. I have put 1,600 miles on the first set I have ever owned and can tell you that they are the best ever owned for handling. And a lot of people are getting 14,000 mile out of them(rear tire).I ran Dunlops for many yrs. The Bridgestones that come on these bikes are not that great and most people change them pretty quick. I changed from Bridgestone on about 4,000 mile(new bike).

[V7Goose]

This looks like normal wear to me and my riding and changing tires for the past 30 yrs. The front tire has probably worn out two rear tires as almost all motorcycle tires do. Tire pressure is the most important and must be maintained regulary.

Fuzzy, you may want to reconsider this after taking a closer look at the pictures. I'm not saying everyone needs to have the same opinion about something - heck, yours doesn't need to be the same as mine, and it might even be right! But I don't think so.

 

The most obvious evidence that this is a damaged frame or fork is in picture 4. There are several apparent problems:

 

1. You can clearly see the side wear end points (where the chicken bars start and none of the original rubber has been worn off) is at a very different point on each side of the tire. This indicates the tire may not have been leaned as far over on turns to the right as it has for turns to the left, which is extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort. So the only thing that would cause the bike to turn the same without being leaned as far would be problems with the alignment or steering geometry.
   
2. With normal wear patterns that produce a tire that shows greater wear on the left side, the chicken bars are identical on each side, but the depth of the tread on the left is just slightly less on the right. In this picture you can clearly see the long center tread groove is completely gone on the right side in the picture (left side of tire), but if you look at the other side of the same tread groove, it is very deep. This shows that the amount of rubber left on that side of the tire is relatively huge compared to the worn out side. This never happens on normal tires where the bike is not damaged. No matter how badly managed the tire is, too much or too little air, or changed pressure every day, both sides will wear close to the same, even if the wear is abnormal.
   
3. Similar to my point in #1, the wear pattern seems to be angled across the tire, but not centered. This suggests to me that the tire is constantly slightly off vertical as it runs on the ground, and the tendency to turn the bike that such an error would produce is counteracted by a slight constant force the rider must hold against the bars, causing the excessive scuffing and wear of the rubber. jarrejx should be able to confirm or refute this guess by telling us if the bike always has a slight pull to one side, especially if he relaxes his hold on the bars. If it does, my bet is a pull to the left.
   

Anyway, like I said above, I can't tell from just the pictures what the real problem is, only guess at some possibilities. But the wear is so grossly different than what a normal tire shows, I am certain the bike is damaged. I hope jarrejx can get it fixed without getting stuck for too much money.

Goose

[footsie]

The crown of the road does account for tire on the left side. I was the director of public works in turner county ga, for 10 years, assistant director 15 years before that.

The studies performed also show that it affects car tires too, the car leaning on the crown transfers slightly more weight to the right side of the car causing more wear on that side.

Now that I have changed careers I have to ride a distance to work daily.

The bike I ride to work,(52 miles round trip) which is ridden in the far left lane on I 75, which is crowned to the left, wears on the right side of tire.

 

freedom of the road for all

 

gregg

[Badacer]

Fuzzy, you may want to reconsider this after taking a closer look at the pictures. I'm not saying everyone needs to have the same opinion about something - heck, yours doesn't need to be the same as mine, and it might even be right! But I don't think so.

 

The most obvious evidence that this is a damaged frame or fork is in picture 4. There are several apparent problems:

 

1. You can clearly see the side wear end points (where the chicken bars start and none of the original rubber has been worn off) is at a very different point on each side of the tire. This indicates the tire may not have been leaned as far over on turns to the right as it has for turns to the left, which is extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort. So the only thing that would cause the bike to turn the same without being leaned as far would be problems with the alignment or steering geometry.
   
2. With normal wear patterns that produce a tire that shows greater wear on the left side, the chicken bars are identical on each side, but the depth of the tread on the left is just slightly less on the right. In this picture you can clearly see the long center tread groove is completely gone on the right side in the picture (left side of tire), but if you look at the other side of the same tread groove, it is very deep. This shows that the amount of rubber left on that side of the tire is relatively huge compared to the worn out side. This never happens on normal tires where the bike is not damaged. No matter how badly managed the tire is, too much or too little air, or changed pressure every day, both sides will wear close to the same, even if the wear is abnormal.
   
3. Similar to my point in #1, the wear pattern seems to be angled across the tire, but not centered. This suggests to me that the tire is constantly slightly off vertical as it runs on the ground, and the tendency to turn the bike that such an error would produce is counteracted by a slight constant force the rider must hold against the bars, causing the excessive scuffing and wear of the rubber. jarrejx should be able to confirm or refute this guess by telling us if the bike always has a slight pull to one side, especially if he relaxes his hold on the bars. If it does, my bet is a pull to the left.
   

Anyway, like I said above, I can't tell from just the pictures what the real problem is, only guess at some possibilities. But the wear is so grossly different than what a normal tire shows, I am certain the bike is damaged. I hope jarrejx can get it fixed without getting stuck for too much money.

Goose

 

Sorry Goose I have to disagree with you on a few points most riders who push bikes fairly hard will have a preference for either left or right handers so your statement "This indicates the tire may not have been leaned as far over on turns to the right as it has for turns to the left, which is extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort." does not hold true, I in fact will quite often scrape the floorboard on the right hand side but never on the left and I am in no way physicaly disabled!!! touch mental maybe.

Your second point that this wear never happens on a bike that is undamaged is also untrue, as a sportsbike rider with over 30 years experience, my front tyres always wore more on the right hand side I put this down to late braking on right handers keeping the front brake on while cranking over, bad pratice I know but if you're competent and confident you'll get away with it. Also dont forget you guys drive on the wrong side of the road.

I do agree with your 3rd point though. But if this was the case i'm sure jarrejx would have mentioned it after all dont forget he has owned the bike for over a year. I also believe that all venture riders are very experienced they are definatly not the type of bike for a novice. For peace of mind though I would get the bike checked out

[V7Goose]

Sorry Goose I have to disagree with you on a few points most riders who push bikes fairly hard will have a preference for either left or right handers so your statement "This indicates the tire may not have been leaned as far over on turns to the right as it has for turns to the left, which is extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort." does not hold true, I in fact will quite often scrape the floorboard on the right hand side but never on the left and I am in no way physicaly disabled!!! touch mental maybe.

Your second point that this wear never happens on a bike that is undamaged is also untrue, as a sportsbike rider with over 30 years experience, my front tyres always wore more on the right hand side I put this down to late braking on right handers keeping the front brake on while cranking over, bad pratice I know but if you're competent and confident you'll get away with it. Also dont forget you guys drive on the wrong side of the road.

I do agree with your 3rd point though. But if this was the case i'm sure jarrejx would have mentioned it after all dont forget he has owned the bike for over a year. I also believe that all venture riders are very experienced they are definitely not the type of bike for a novice. For peace of mind though I would get the bike checked out

Sir Bad, there is absolutely no reason to apologize - I LIKE people with different opinions, especially the wrong ones! After all, if we didn't have people with wrong opinions around here to balance out those with right opinions, wouldn't this place be really boring? ;-) I'll leave it to you to decide who is the wrong one here.

 

Actually, I didn't respond to claim you were wrong - there are some sound concepts that give at least a hint of truth to most of what you say. But do they really apply here? Let's start off by my admitting I didn't throw out the usual 20 disclaimers since I couldn't cover all points in detail. For that, I'll gladly accept being shot at dawn. But before then I'm gonna bore y'all with some of the stuff I didn't think was necessary here before now.

 

Let's realize that this thread and the particular problem is specific to a normal street machine, and in particular a big touring street machine. For that reason, I didn't see any point in discussing how a track bike wears tires, or even street squids on their crotch rockets. I did, however, constantly reference "normal", not the strange exceptions.

 

As to my comment about what is or is not "extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort" and your exception to it - all I can do is refer you back to the original post and the pictures of this specific tire. This wear pattern is grossly abnormal! Tho I may be dead wrong, I will still maintain that something as bad as that tire will never never never be produced by someone simply favoring a right turn over the left. I guess I'd have to see a tire taken from a normal street bike that had never been crashed that looked that nasty before I could give in on this "certainty." But if you are simply quibbling over the unqualified sound of my statement, made without disclaimers and sounding like absolute fact, well, I'll accept that and sit guilty as charged. But I will still insist that you apply my assertions to the original spirit and specifics of this thread! And I will also maintain that a normal street rider who simply often scrapes one floorboard and not the other will NEVER see any visible evidence of this minor imperfection in their tire wear.

 

On your second point, have you even maybe possibly considered that your tires (notice how that is spelled using the correct letters, not that weird stuff you use) ;-) showing more wear on the right side instead of the more common left side is caused by YOUR riding on the wrong side of the road?? And again, sportsbike riding has relatively little to do with this thread!

 

But if you agree with my third point, I'm sure that will be prooved wrong in relative short order!

[GeorgeS]

I would check the Fork tube Mounting bolts, are they tight? Are both tubes mounted to the same length ( Vertical mount point in the triple tree )

 

 

Do both tubes have the same amount of Fork Oil installed?? ( When is the last time the fork oil was changed ?? )

 

Maby the last guy to re-assemble the forks, left out a part on one side ???

 

Is the Axel Torqued correctly ??

 

I agree with some extra wear on left side, but not that much.

 

Frankly on my bike I have never seen any trace of extra wear on left side ??

I'm sort of puzzled with this one.

[jarrejx]

...Unfortunately, the pictures show a tire that, IMHO, absolutely could not get that way unless either the forks or frame are damaged. It is a sad fact of life that new tires are often installed on any used vehicle to conceal problems that clearly show up as strange tire wear. It is not honest, but the potential buyers always seem to think they are getting something extra for their money instead of being cheated. By the time the problems show up in the tire wear, the seller is long long gone, so there is little risk in doing it.

 

If the bike was mine, I'd probably start by making about 10,000 side-by-side measurements with a known good RSV in an attempt to find something out of whack as a starting point. But the reality is that you really need to take the bike to a good frame shop and have them do the checkout.

Goose

 

I purchased MyPalomino from a dealer in NJ who had just received it in trade from a member of this forum. I found this out after I got the bike home. I made contact w/ PO to get more info on the bike's maintenance history. Through PMs he told me that he only owned the bike for 1 month and put the new tires on because his PO sold him the bike w/ worn out tires. I have no doubts re: his honesty as he had no reason to not be. He had already sold the bike to the dealer and my transaction was completed. That still does not mean that the bike did not have damage he was unaware of.

 

I will definitely follow your advice and do side-by-side measurements against YamaQman's 2001 RSV and follow up w/ examination by a frame expert as soon as possible after that. I must tell you emphatically that I have not experienced any tangible evidence of frame or fork damage in my bike. Never a pull to left or right. Even on wide open slabs with one hand on bars, (did I write that?) bike runs true and no effort required to maintain straight line.

 

 

V7Goose

Similar to my point in #1, the wear pattern seems to be angled across the tire, but not centered. This suggests to me that the tire is constantly slightly off vertical as it runs on the ground, and the tendency to turn the bike that such an error would produce is counteracted by a slight constant force the rider must hold against the bars, causing the excessive scuffing and wear of the rubber. jarrejx should be able to confirm or refute this guess by telling us if the bike always has a slight pull to one side, especially if he relaxes his hold on the bars. If it does, my bet is a pull to the left.

Anyway, like I said above, I can't tell from just the pictures what the real problem is, only guess at some possibilities. But the wear is so grossly different than what a normal tire shows, I am certain the bike is damaged. I hope jarrejx can get it fixed without getting stuck for too much money.

 

As I said, never a pull to left or right. Goose, you could very well be right re: damage, however, the ride of this bike says otherwise. If a damaged bike can handle this effortlessly, getting it repaired would mean I'll have to start submitting flight plans before my rides.

 

Badacer:

Sorry Goose I have to disagree with you on a few points most riders who push bikes fairly hard will have a preference for either left or right handers so your statement "This indicates the tire may not have been leaned as far over on turns to the right as it has for turns to the left, which is extraordinarily unusual for any rider who does not have physical disabilities of some sort." does not hold true, I in fact will quite often scrape the floorboard on the right hand side but never on the left and I am in no way physicaly disabled!!!

 

Badacer, you're absolutely on point with the harder lean into the left handers thing. As I said earlier, closest thing to a twistie in city riding. Right hand turns here are typically short and tight turns at intersections. No physical disabilities I am aware of. My U-turn practice is also predominantly to the left.

 

GeorgeS

I would check the Fork tube Mounting bolts, are they tight? Are both tubes mounted to the same length ( Vertical mount point in the triple tree )

Do both tubes have the same amount of Fork Oil installed?? ( When is the last time the fork oil was changed ?? )

 

Maby the last guy to re-assemble the forks, left out a part on one side ???

 

Is the Axel Torqued correctly ??

 

I agree with some extra wear on left side, but not that much.

 

Frankly on my bike I have never seen any trace of extra wear on left side ??

I'm sort of puzzled with this one.

 

I will check the fork tubes and its mounting bolts tomorrow. I'll be sure to have the frame expert give them a more thorough going over. Don't know if axle was torqued correctly, but it is now, since I put on the new tire. Will update all as soon as possible.

 

Starq

Something else many riders don't realize is the Coriolis effect makes left and right turns feel different. Check out this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect

 

You obviously could not have known that it took me 4 years to get through high school algebra, therefore most of the information in the above link was lost on me. But it did raise a curiosity in my mind...could being left-handed have any impact on riding style that could contribute to the uneven tire wear I have experienced? Maybe that is the physical disability Goose was looking for.

 

Thanks again. I am believing that extensive repairs will not be necessary and I can spend my "allowance" on a hitch and trailer. Talk with you all soon.

[V7Goose]

It is great to hear that your bike handles well - that at least gives some hope that the problem is not too serious. I wish you luck.

 

Just to add a little more comparison info for you, I have included several pictures below of the four used RSV front tires I currently have laying around, and here is a link to another thread from two years ago on the same subject:

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=14520

 

In the first picture, all four tires are oriented the same way - as if you are looking at the tire from the front of the bike.

[ATTACH]31476[/ATTACH]

 

These are the same tires, just presented slightly closer with only two tires in each picture. To make comparisons easier, I have also included one of jarrejx's original tire pictures too:

[ATTACH]31477[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]31478[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]31479[/ATTACH]

 

The first picture shows a Dunlop D404 that was taken off a bit early simply because the owner wanted a new matched set. In person you can almost detect the normal extra wear on the left side of the tire, but not really in the photo. Next to it is an old Brickstone that I recently pulled off my bike. You can easily see how slight the difference in left/right wear pattern normally is by looking at the top of the "Y" points in the tread, near the center. Those on the left side of the tire are just beginning to disappear, while the same place on the other side still shows a distinct edge to all of the grooves.

 

The next picture shows a Pirelli MT66 taken of my bike this spring. Again, you can easily see the different left/right wear pattern by looking at the two grooves on either side of center. The other tire in that picture is another completely shot Brickstone - no idea who's bike it came from. The wear pattern is the same as the first one, just taken to extreme. The "Y" points on the left side are completely gone, and there is just a hint of them left on the right side.

 

I consider these four tires to all have normal wear for the USA/Canada/any place that rides on the RIGHT side of the road. The last picture of jarrejx's tire shows the same left/right pattern with two major problems - the wear is not in the same place on each side of the tire (it is like the entire wear pattern is just shifted about 1/2 inch off-center to the left side of the bike), and the difference between the amount of rubber worn off the left side of the tire compared to te right side is huge. I consider that tire wear very abnormal.

 

Goose

[JerryK]

What air pressure did you run in the Avons while you had it? I have ran Dunlop,Metzler 880 and 3 sets of Avons......Avons are the best I've ever had and handle the best too.....I run 43 LB of air front and back and get over 20k on front and 16-19k on rear. Something else I do every couple months [because I run the interstate] is take the bike to a BIG parking lot with new sharp black top and run about a 25 mile/hr tight figure 8 for about 10 minutes......that will knock off the edges you get from super slab riding. I learned this trick with a trip to Deals Gap a few years ago. Tires were much better after running there for a day. Flat center was gone! I think that running my back and forth trip to work on I-75 at 75-80 mph daily helps my long tire wear.....The bike is pretty light on the tires at 80 mph! JerryK:Venture:

[StarQ]

Left and right wear with less in the center could mean the tire is underinflated, the number one cause of improper tire wear. Low tire pressure causes the contact patch to bear the weight of the bike more on the edges.

 

My front tire does show wear on the left and right sides and less on the center. I speculate that this may be due to normal riding / turn conditions.

Ride safe.

[N3FOL]

Left and right wear with less in the center could mean the tire is underinflated, the number one cause of improper tire wear. Low tire pressure causes the contact patch to bear the weight of the bike more on the edges.

 

I agree with you, StarQ. My tire pressure in front is at 36 psi to 37 psi and the rear has about 39 psi. At 5500 miles, my rear tire still a lot of thread and no abnormal tire wear so far (knocking on wood). I think my wear pattern on the front is normal...if I get 15K to 18K miles on the front, I may have used the tires useful life and it is time to replace.

[jarrejx]

What air pressure did you run in the Avons while you had it? I have ran Dunlop,Metzler 880 and 3 sets of Avons......Avons are the best I've ever had and handle the best too.....I run 43 LB of air front and back and get over 20k on front and 16-19k on rear. Something else I do every couple months [because I run the interstate] is take the bike to a BIG parking lot with new sharp black top and run about a 25 mile/hr tight figure 8 for about 10 minutes......that will knock off the edges you get from super slab riding. I learned this trick with a trip to Deals Gap a few years ago.

 

On Avons, I ran 36 psi front & 48 rear for solo riding and 41/53 on rare 2-up rides. My body weight fluctuates between 210-215 lbs. I have bumped the psi to 41 on the front Dunlop I just installed. Thanks for your insight. I got a suspicion that underinflation may have contributed to the unusual tire wear. Per other members' suggestions, I am going to break out the measuring tools and examine the forks today.

 

N3FOL wrote: I agree with you, StarQ. My tire pressure in front is at 36 psi to 37 psi and the rear has about 39 psi. At 5500 miles, my rear tire still a lot of thread and no abnormal tire wear so far (knocking on wood). I think my wear pattern on the front is normal...if I get 15K to 18K miles on the front, I may have used the tires useful life and it is time to replace

 

This is the type of mileage I expected out of the Avon I ran on the front wheel. Got around 10K before discarding and as one member posted earlier, I probably rode on it longer than I should have.

 

Jerry

[bobbyduck]

Hi,

 

The only thing that I will add to the plethora of info already here - after you have mounted new tires and before they begin to wear, try several different stretches of what looks like flat road, and take your hands off the bars for a bit. If you have to shift your weight to make it go straight, you have an alignment problem. If not, you don't.

 

The reason for using different roads is because none of them are really flat and the slope will make it turn a bit . Using a few different roads, you can begin to tell for sure.

 

Good luck!