We all know that tyres don’t last for ever but exactly when do they need replacing? Here’s how to tell when the time has come for a new pair.
There are essentially five parts to a clincher tyre (standard tyres that use inner tubes, held in place by a bead that hooks to the wheel rim, as opposed to tubulars that are bonded to the wheel):
Casing The supple body of the tyre, made of nylon (usually) in various numbers of threads per inch (TPI), that’s covered in rubber.
Protection layer Manufacturers sometimes use various different types of material underneath the tread to provide resistance against punctures.
Tread The compound that comes into contact with the ground.
Bead The bit around the edge that secures the tyre to the wheel rim. These are made from wire or foldable Kevlar.
Anti-chafing strip The reinforcement that protects the bead.
Check out our guide to road cycling tyres.
Impacts
Most road bike tyres will go through their lives without experiencing too much in the way of trauma, but you might hit a pothole, a big stone, or some other obstacle that causes damage to the structure, or something might ping up from the road surface.
Check your tyres carefully if anything like this happens.
“A casing breach of any size in the sidewall/ 2mm under the tread would usually render a tyre disabled and ready for replacement,” says Shelley Childs of Cambrian Tyres, the company that distributes Continental bike tyres in the UK.
“If you hit a pothole and feel the wheel rim has made contact with the road surface, then there is a chance that the tyre sidewall (casing) has been breached, even if there is no air loss of the inner tube. Stop and check.
“Also, if you ride over something that causes an obvious bump or jerk to the handling of the bike, your tyre may have been damaged, even if you don’t suffer a puncture. Again, stop and check just to be safe.
“If you do see a tear anywhere on the exposed surface of the tyre (tread or sidewall), inspect it thoroughly and try to see if the inner tube is visible. If so, the tyre is unsafe. If not, then the casing should still be intact and you can ride on, but get the tyre checked by your local dealer just to be sure.”
Check the wheel too.
“If the tyre/tube survives a pothole smash then it’s essential that after you’ve checked the tyres you should also check your rims to make sure that their structure hasn't been compromised,” says Schwalbe's Dave Taylor. “A dented rim or displaced spoke can cause unwanted friction for tyre and tube which could lead to a puncture on a later ride.”
Tread wear indicators
Most often, though, tyres simply wear out gradually with use due to contact with the road.
Some tyres come with tread wear indicators that tell you when it’s time for a replacement.
Continental road tyres, for example, now have two small ‘tap-holes’ in the central area of the tread. These are designed to disappear as the tyre nears the end of its serviceable life. Once the holes are gone it’s time to bin the tyre, no matter how tempting it is to try to wring a bit more life out of them.
A small triangle and the letters TWI on the sidewall show you where the tread wear indicator should be.
Although it's getting worn, the tread wear indicators on this tyre (above) are still visible.
Other manufacturers use their own tread wear indicators. This one (above), for example, is on a Giant tyre.
If you’ve skidded your bike it could be that the tread wear indicators are still intact but you’ve worn through the tread in another area. You need to change your tyre in this situation.
What if your tyres don’t have tread wear indicators?
“A tyre will change its shape slightly once it has worn out,” says Shelley Childs. “As well as affecting the handling of the bike slightly, it will no longer look round in the cross section [as above], it will look more square, as the tread area has worn significantly.
“If your tyre had a tread pattern, this will have disappeared and in extreme cases, you may even see the casing material showing through.“
Dave Taylor says, “When the puncture protection belt or the carcass threads can be seen through the tread the tyre has reached its wear limit and must be replaced. As puncture resistance also depends on the thickness of the tread layer, it may be useful to replace the tyre sooner.”
Find out what tyre width is best for you.
Repeated flats
If your tyres don’t have tread wear indicators, repeatedly getting flats from small stones and pieces of glass is an indication that the tread could have worn thin and it’s time to replace your tyres.
If the protection layer or the casing is showing through, it’s definitely time for some new rubber.
Worn sidewalls
A tyre’s sidewalls will sometimes fail before the tread is worn out.
“In most cases, this premature failure is due to prolonged use of the tyre with insufficient inflation pressure,” says Schwalbe. “Checking and adjusting the inflation pressure at least once a month with a pressure gauge is most important.”
The sidewalls may be damaged if a bike is left on flat tyres for a long period. If fitted on a wheel, tyres should be inflated or the wheel should be hung up for storage.
Bead problems
If the bead is damaged and is blown off the rim when you inflate the inner tube, you need to replace the tyre.
Tread pattern
Don’t worry too much about the depth of the tread pattern – if there is one on your tyres – affecting performance. When we visited Continental last year, their experts told us that the tread pattern doesn’t make much difference on the road. It has a role in certain circumstances, but it doesn’t do much, unlike off-road when the tread pattern is vital in determining grip on conformable ground.
However, if the pattern is getting shallow, that could be a warning that the tread itself is wearing thin and that the tyres will soon need replacing.
Swapping front and rear tyres
Your rear tyre will invariably wear quicker than your front tyre. Some people will swap over the front and rear tyres after some use to make sure they wear out at roughly the same time, but Shelley Childs doesn’t think this is good practice.
“It is not advisable due to the change in handling characteristics of each tyre as they become worn,” he says. “A rear tyre will be square, whist a front tyre more rounded. To put a worn rear tyre on the front wheel would negatively affect the handling of your bike.”
Schwalbe's Dave Taylor isn't so opposed to the idea.
“This is really up to the individual rider and takes into account things like their own budget, riding style, riding distance, and riding surfaces," he says. "You would want fresh rubber front and rear for a gran fondo, for example, but would settle for a front and rear swap for your daily commute.”
Check out road.cc tyre reviews here.
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50 comments
Mavic Yksion tyres: "9/10 for durability": road.cc report: 26 Jan 2015!
Dont you worry, in slovakia there are also bad A class roads and even somewhere worse than your 2nd class in uk. Well, at least somehow we got (thanks to post-socialism era), those 2nd class roads wider ((East Midlands roads used to be good for me for time spent over there ... just dont take this bloody cycling adventures so seriously and enjoy the nature, fresh air and beauty around your freedome, Happy endless miles and kilometres! Ahoj. / Nazdar.
Strangley enough, folks whose salary depend on you buying tyres sooner, advices you to check/change your tyre as often as possible. Who'd have thunk it?
I really have a good read about your post. Thanks for sharing, it helped me a lot. An in-depth post like this with so much valuable information must help everyone in biking industry, I will definitely bookmark this for future reference.
I agree. I've never worn a tyre out; it'll always get sliced up within 3,000km.
It's in the noise floor. My back-of-a-fag-packet calculation gave 0.044 pence (battery capacity is 3.7Wh, 1kWh costs 12 pence). It's more than that given the charger isn't 100% efficient, but not much more. More pertinent would be: what's the lifespan and replacement cost of a Di2 battery?
Depends where you ride. YMMV very literally.
In deepest Hampshire with flints on the back roads Mavic/Continental rubber compounds are way too soft and these tyres last anything from 1 to 20 rides only, depending on the season. (rain in winter means Continetal Gatorskins in particular last 1-2 rides for me - and Yes I tried them 3 times before learning the lesson).
If you suffer multiple punctures on a regular basis switch to Schwlabe Durano Plus tyres, they cost a bit more but you bank the savings in patches and inner tubes many times over during their lifetime. You won't look back.
In summer the Scwalbe Ones are a good trade-off between wieght and puncture resistance.
Going back to the Yksiums I use them for a fortnight each summer in the high Pyrenees with zero punctures, they are great tyres assuming no flints or glass on the roads. Ride them here in Hampshire and I can't complete a single ride without a puncture.
The lesson is... buy/fit tryres suitable to, your riding location, your weight (I'm 80kg), and the propensity of flints/glass in your area.
Hmmm. Tyre companies obviously want us to change tyres as often as possible. Perhaps they make the tyres that little bit less robust than is necessary? Also, my last tyre shopping google resulted in around 30% of the tyres on offer costing more than the tyres for my car. So 100hp 1ton vehicle has the same tyre cost as a 1hp, 100kg vehicle? And amazingly I seem to get through more bicycle tyres than car tyres, even though I do 4 times the mileage on the same crappy roads in my car. Pish. Someone's making a lot of money...
You must treat your bike to GP 5000s while fitting your car with Wong Chin ditch-finders?!
Based on some rough maths my car tyres have a contact patch of about 20 square inches each. My bike tyres have a contact patch of less than 1 square inch each. I'd rather that 1 square inch was good and grippy, thanks...
I've just binned a Conti GP GT after 6,000km of all-weathers commuting, on the rear, usually carrying a loaded pannier. The tread wear indicator still has about 1.5mm of depth to it, but I could feel when leaning the bike into a corner that the tyre had developed "corners" either side of the flat crown.
What's wrong? My arse or Continental's tread wear indicators?
You're doing great in on the bike and gear longevity front but I find it very hard to believe you get that life out of 10 speed chains.
I've run 10s for years now and will only get about 3k kms - including riding through Winters.
I've just had one of the most frustrating days of my life trying to seat the valve on my tubeless Kinlin asymetric rim that just keeps leaking air. After 6 hours of on-and-off reflating, reseating and replacing the valve only to watch the bubbles emerge from the valve area, again (I know, little else to do these days!), I finally gave up and put an inner tube in. Might have another go when the weather turns....but thank Boris that the bike shops are still open.
Don't know if it helps but Pacenti do tubeless valves for their asymettric rims?
https://pacenticycledesign.co.uk/products/tubeless-valves-pair-50mm-alloy
Still waiting for mine as they got delivered to my (now closed) office. In two minds as to whether I'll bother, if I can satisfy myself that I can get tyres off and reseat them in the middle of nowhere with a mini-pump then it might be worth it, currently they feel pretty good at 45psi with tubes so not sure if it's worth the bother...
Isn't this the old school reason for rotating tyres? I've been rotating my 4seasons (well, have done, twice) as the rear would start to look flatter than the front.
I also like to pretend I'm a Moto-GP rider 'scrubbing in' his tyres at the start of the race, e.g. very occassionally throwing in some pointlessly exaggerated cornering, trying to convince myself this will make up for the 99.99% of the time I ride completely upright
A steering wheel for an Aston Martin will cost more than for a Ford Fiesta but they both do the same job.
There's absolutely no point comparing tyres between bicycles and cars. You can get bike tyres for under £10 if you shop around. BSOs are available at Halfords and elsewhere, the tyres on those seem to last ages. But they're rubbish. We have two Apollo bikes in our house and they're both awful.
Good article. I am seeing small sized cracks along the face of the tires. What is your opinion on this. Thanks
Hmm, a four year old article on when to change worn out articles.
Why even bother commenting then?
When i can see inner tube
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