Tires, safety and age.

[vince]

I bought a used Honda CBR900R. Very nice condition. Looks like new. After a little work on it to get it running. I took it to work. On the freeway changing lanes the bike slide out on me both front and rear. It does get your attention for sure.

A few days later I take the bike to Vintage Bike Night. I almost dropped the bike going around two corners. I get to Bike Night and I have friends look at the bike. I said put your hands on the tires. Everyone that did said. Those are hockey pucks. How can you ride that thing.

It is hard to find a set of tires for that bike with a 16" front wheel. But I did and installed them right away.  I rode it to work the next day and to ride it to last Thursday Vintage Bike Night.

Left work to head on down. I get down the street. Before highway 13 there is a frontage road. It is a bad intersection. I hate it on the bike or in the car. Anyway I have a green light and a minivan at a stop sign on the frontage road. Pulls out at full speed to beat out other cars coming at him.

Well you guessed it. We are going to hit. It is going to be a T bone. He is going to T bone me on my left side and take out my leg. Or I T bone the right side of his minivan. I would rather hit him than he hit me. I lean to the left and hit my brakes. I skid the back tires and hit the front brake hard as I can. The bike does a stoppie. Of course I have to let go and regain full control of the bike. Then start over to try and stop and miss the van. The van after seeing me speed up then slows down then speeds up again. Well because he finally decide to just speed up and go though the intersection I was able to avoid the van.

My point here is that because I had put good tires on I did not crash hit my brake so hard. The bike did a stoppie. I didn't even know it could do one. If I had the old tires on. When I lean the bike over to the left. Then hit the front brake that hard I would have washed out the front end. I would have gone down hard. Most likely would have maybe gone under the van. Very bad.

So even if your tires don't look bad if they are old. They are bad. Change them. Your life depends on it.

[Deplorable, thank you!]

When the king of riding tires long past their useful life puts up a post about the need for good tires and how they saved his bacon over those hockey pucks......... (or those bald as shit tires that are chaffing for that matter)

 Well you know it was bad...............



 Safety, safety safety, how much are you saving trying to eek out that last 500 miles (maybe $10?) v what will it cost if you end up on the ground or under a van (maybe $10,000 maybe more, maybe less...... not to even mention the lifetime affects of crashing)

Best case scenario, you eek out another 500 miles out of each set of tires and put yourself in mortal danger during all those miles
even if you go through 4 sets of tires each season, what have you saved? $40, $50........... who the fuck cares if over a period of one year you spend or save $50 more on your enjoyment?
even if you ride for 40 years, what have is the difference over a lifetime? $2000 best case scenario and that is if it never catches up to you!!!
even one fall over even if only at 10mph will cost you that much!

Don't be stupid, for your own safety and that of everyone you meet on the road.......... I am sure Mr minivan appreciates the fact Vince did not end up under his Van or in it!

Cut corners somewhere else, not on your riding fun nor your riding safety!!

[pkpk]

Also make sure you look at the date code of the tires you purchase.  Several years ago I received Bridgestone tires from Dennis Kirk that had a four year old date code.  They did right by me and shipped me fresh tires.  They explained that they don't stock all types of tires on site (these were touring tires for the ST) so they have no control over the warehouse and inventory control from distributors.