Just a few cracks in my 8 month old tire

[ChuckS]

On a road trip to upstate New York in August I noticed some cracking around the tread blocks in my Avon Distenzia (whatever) tire on the pointy end of my rig. It's a rear, fitting "backwards". It was HOT, I was riding fast to get there, picked up the girlfriend, and toured around the dirt and mountains, no surprise the tire was not happy.

Until last week, the cracks didn't expand or change any, so I didn't worry. Last week I had a near miss on the slab, naturally involving max braking. Apparently my tire got tired of the abuse.

Looks fine, lots of tread left. I installed in November '11, maybe 8k miles ago (stupidly didn't log the mileage):



Closer inspection- cracks all around:



Some cracks down to the cords. I'm no tire expert, but this can't be a good thing:


In the next month, I have two trips planned. Both around 1000 miles, so the beast got a new tire today.

[sieg]

Looks old, what's the manufacture date?

[BeeMaa]

Not good.
Looks like the carcass is separating from the inner belts.
Might be due to the stresses (and heat) of your most recent ride.
There should be a date code cast into the tire to tell you date of manufacture.
If it's old, get a new one.
If it's not, get a new one.
No reason to risk a front end blow out in a corner.

I'm currently running a Metzler ME880 on the front of my rig.
Have logged over 7K miles on it, some of it quite agressive riding, with no real signs of wear.
Yes, it is a street tire and when off-road the handeling does suffer, but I don't do a ton of off-road anyway.
I'll see what I can do about taking some pics of my front tire and post 'em.
Good luck.

[claude]

Originally Posted by BeeMaa

Not good.
Looks like the carcass is separating from the inner belts.
Might be due to the stresses (and heat) of your most recent ride.
There should be a date code cast into the tire to tell you date of manufacture.
If it's old, get a new one.
If it's not, get a new one.
No reason to risk a front end blow out in a corner.

I'm currently running a Metzler ME880 on the front of my rig.
Have logged over 7K miles on it, some of it quite agressive riding, with no real signs of wear.
Yes, it is a street tire and when off-road the handeling does suffer, but I don't do a ton of off-road anyway.
I'll see what I can do about taking some pics of my front tire and post 'em.
Good luck.

Ditto to all of the above ! You do not want to blow a front tire. Having a rear tire lose wind especially in a turn can create a pucker moment no doubt. Blowing a front tire in a turn or even on a straight stretch can create much more excitement that will do nothing for your fun meter.
Frankly I do not see anything wrong in running a street type tire on most of these types of outfits under most conditions. The ME880 is a very good choice as far a cycle tires go for sidecar usage.

[ChuckS]

The date code on the Avon is 1311, so it was made in April 2011. I guess I'm just hard on my toys. I really have no complaints with the Avon- it worked great in all conditions. Apparently the Brits do know how to make a tire that works well in the rain!

I spooned a BT45 on yesterday. Correction- I tried to spoon it on, had to resort to digging out the tire change machine. Next one will be ME880.

Enough typing- time for a test run of the new tire!

[BeeMaa]

Keep us up to date and let us know how it goes.

Cheers.