This weekend I changed my rear tire (Dunlop 402) over to a 140mm Metzeler. I bought my bike used so do not know how many miles were on the tires, but I put 5500 on the Dunlop. A friend had noticed that my rear tire was looking a liitle lean on tread. By appearance it looked pretty good, but the looks were very deceiving. When I checked it I had less than 2/32" tread on the main contact patch, but no wear bars were showing. The new Metzeler has shown me the dramatic difference in what I thought was okay to what is definitely okay.

Just so happened that I bought a replacement front tire at the same time (my local shop had been having some backorder problems). Guess what. The front tire, though looking very good on tread depth, is at or near the 2/32" mark on its main contact patch. Looks like I'll be changing front tires soon.

Take some time and check the tread depth on your tires. What I thought visually looked fine was actually at or below 2/32". The outside tread on these tires isn't used much unless you are cornering alot, but it can give the illusion of greater than actual tread depth.

Later,
BK

 

Glad you checked it before you had trouble. Checking your tires for air pressure, foriegn objects and tread depth should be done as part of a pre-ride inspection, prior to every ride.