Anyone know the name of this problem or the cause? While on a long ride far from home, a friend pointed out that my rear tire was worn out to the point of exposed steel belt. I was shocked because I'd checked the tire recently and it had a nearly full tread and less than 9k on the tire. I put the bike on the center stand and rotated the tire around. I found that half the tire had very little wear and nearly full tread, while the other half was worn through. It's important to point out that I don't mean viewing the bike from behind, the left half and the right half, instead I mean when viewing the bike from the side so it's a circle like a clock. When viewing it this way there was significant wear at 3 o'clock but little wear at 9 o'clock. I don't even know what to call this weird wear pattern. Looking down on the tire from behind, the tread wears evenly, nothing weird there. I replaced that tire, balanced the wheel and it's happening again. The belt isn't exposed and I've rebalanced the tire. Any ideas? Does this problem have a name? The bike is a 2004 Suzuki V-Strom 1000. The tires are Metzler Tourance.
Sounds like the rim might be out of round since it is doing it with a new tire and a good balance job. Take a look at your shadow as you ride in the morning or evening when the sun is low. You might be able to tell if the rear wheel is going up and down.
"Nearly full tread" at the less-worn area of the tire? I have seen tires go like this, where the belts start to show at some points, but by then the tread is gone at all points of the tire's circumference.
Severely out of balance. Broken, or tuned, shock valving matching the resonance of the tire rotation. or, walk away, 7000 is good.
even though i balance my tires they always have more wear on one side of the tire than the other. so probably out of balance really bad would do that.
Another possibility is that the belts shifted during the molding of the tire. And; +1, 9k rear tire life? I'm going to try one of those tires.
if both tires did this at 9k or more I say its just the tires dieing and belt breaking or something like that. if the second tire did it really fast then i would look at the rim. Car tires do this when the belts break. this one was a extreme example of it, the tread should be flat not rounded and those are the belts sticking out from the inside.
