When is a tyre considered worn?

mugensi

The stock 29er tyres are still on my Cube. (Tough Tom/Rapid Rob) The front tyre looks like new but the centre knobbles on the rear tyre are well down, maybe 1 - 1.5mm remaining. A new tyre has tread depth of around 5mm. I have a new tyre waiting to go on but wanted to get the most out of the current tyre. So my question, when are they considered worn, is it when the knobbles on the centre are completely worn away but the outer knobbles are still intact and near enough full depth or is it like mine at the moment and only a mm or two remaining?

cooldad

When you are not getting decent grip.

LimitedGarry

Here's the thing - you can wear the tire down to the point where it's completely bald and still ride on it. The main factor here is grip. Even when the center knobs are worn out almost completely, the side knobs are still fine, so you still have sufficient grip in turns.
However, the more worn your tire is, the more prone it is to punctures and the kind of catastrophic damage that will send you on a long walk of shame, spare tube or not. Also, bald tires make you feel really stupid when you encounter some loose and wet terrain.

So really, it's entirely up to you to decide when tire is to be replaced.

avalanche_expert

I consider a tyre to be worn when the bike starts loosing grip at times that it normally wouldn't. Once it starts feeling twitchy and the tyre in question is also looking considerably lower on tread than the other one - then it's time to swap it.

Speaking of which it's time for a new front one for me.

BigAl

cooldad wrote:

When you are not getting decent grip.

Er well, this really.

Chrisj22

When you fall off, ha

cooldad

I know people who'd be changing tyres every ride in that case.

mugensi

I think I'll leave it for another few weeks and fit the new tyre when things start to get wetter/muckier as the ground is reasonably dry for now and grip with the tyres is fine.

The_Wicker_Man

cooldad wrote:

When you are not getting decent grip.

This

lawman

As other have said, when you start to feel a loss of grip. Having said that a set of michelins I had years ago were dog poop when they were new, but by the time they were pretty much down to the canvas they were actually pretty good!

schmako

Tyres on my Patriot are like 10 years old, still going strong. Finally changed the back innertube due to a puncture, was dated 2006, now thats what i call value for money!

(should maybe replace them though haha)