4/11/2025 Those Tires!

What does a car have four of but a motorcycle only two? Sure, tires!

However, the similarities end pretty much there.

If one of your automobile tires goes flat, you can ease over to the road's shoulder and replace it with your spare.

The motorcyclist has no such luxury.

In fact in "my case" it is much of a you're stuck until someone comes to get the bike. So this is why I've gone to carting a jack and portable air compressor with me.

If the rear tires on your car wore out two to four times faster than those on the front, got as little as 3,000 miles and cost around $200 each, you'd probably go ballistic. Yet that is what motorcyclists face, particularly if they ride a performance bike and they ride it aggressively.

My problem with one of my bikes was an issue with my tire slowly losing air over a few days.

My last inflation of that tire had lost 30 lbs.

It is a problem I've seen before because this is what happened to a friend's tire once in Wichita, Kansas.

In closer inspection it was shoddy manufacturing process of flash around inter tire rim edge.

Rear tire "Life" is typically 6,000-8,000 miles for a motorcycle tire, which generally gets replaced about twice as often as a front tire, because it puts the power to the road and has more weight resting on it. Some riders of touring bikes such as the Honda GL1500 Gold Wing report up to 20,000 miles on the rear and 30,000 on the front. But that is still a far cry from automobile tire mileage, which can give a 50,000 plus - mile warranty.

Incidentally, you don't see advertising claims or mileage guarantees on motorcycle tires.

Actually, the tire had 11,184 miles in two years of winter riding. So it may have been above the curve for some bikes & tires.

However, it was an added frustration with finding a tire that is available, relatively open scheduling and plunking down the $ for a installation.

I thought about just airing it daily until I got home to find a solution or tire to resolve the issue.

I'll been known to be wearing a cap to keep my hair intact at those moment... 🤪

Nana