Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Hello everybody,

Yesterday I had my first experience with a flat tire. My rear tire was completely out of air in the morning. When they were fixing it, I noticed that the rear tire is significantly more worn than the front tire. So, here are my questions:

1) Does a flat tire is kind of a warning that it's time to change the tire?
2) Should I only replace the rear tire or is it recommended to change both tires?

By the way... I didn't know that my tires used tubes... It thought they were radial...

Any help will be greatly welcome.

Luis.

You can replace only the rear tire if you want to, there are no rules that say you must change both. I usually go through two rear tires for every front. If you don't know when the tire was manufactured you may want to change the front too.

Yep, that's the average I've seen working in a shop, although if you do wheelies or burnouts I've seen up to 4 or 5 rears per front (for stunters). Just use the same company and model if you can, as the tire profiles, materials, and carcass differences vary greatly between the companies.

Ditto on the replacement frequency. I just replaced my rear tire this spring, but the front was fine.

The reason you don't have a radial tire is because a radial tire has a slightly pronounced edge to its side wall (at least that's what I read somewhere once). Since motorcycles have to "lean" on the sides of their tires to take turns and curves, you wouldn't want to have the pronounced edge going from the street skin to the tire's side wall. Again, I read it somewhere - can't remember where.

Enjoy your new skin!! Remember, easy does it until it is worn in a bit - watch your turns and wet road surfaces. After awhile you can start making your chicken strips!

Cheers,
Loonette