The years are flying by. Time keeps ticking away. Your bones ache, your joints are stiff, and your shoes hurt your feet. AND YOUR TIRES ARE WORN.. Welcome to midlife. If you’ve got an old bike, or even a newer bike that you’ve not been out riding on , you might want to play close attention to these 3 things before you head out on your next ride.
Making These 3 Mistakes?
- Check your age. Tires don’t last forever, check out this post on how to know the age of your tires. Old rubber is kind of like your old aching joints. It dosn’t like to move and flex. Do you really want to break the sound barrier on a pair of brittle shoes?
- Check your tread. If you’ve put a few (thousand) miles on those shoes, it might be good to check the tread depth. Do you see wear bars? Do you have cracks between the tread? Are there any objects (rocks, bits of metal, glass) stuck in the tread?
- Are you overly obsessed with SHINE? You might not know where this is going, but if your only seat time comes when you back that bike out into the driveway to wash, wax, and shine her up, you might be decreasing the safety if you’re treating it like your car. We all love that black tire look, but that black shine comes at a cost. It creates a slickness to your tire. You have to ask yourself, is riding around with LESS traction generally a good idea on a motorcycle? Not that anyone would INTENTIONALLY make their tires LESS safe, but a recent news story this year pointed to a mistake made by a Dr, potentially associated to tire shine product on the tread.
The list above could be summed up in a saying: “Don’t take things for granted”
A lot rests on your tires . Make sure they are in good shape!
Keep riding and stay safe.