Tyre life - what's wrong with this photo? ....

[2manyoranges]

Thanks - some of those "facts" are plucked straight from the air though)
Soft, grippy, flexible rubber is likely to wear faster than that hard shiny stuff.

But 2many's experience of the knobs breaking off seems odd.
We don't sell that many knobblies, mostly schwalbe or conti for the deliveroo crowd,, but I don't see the knob failure happening.

I'm wondering if poor commercial storage or fakery might up the chances?

explanation? .... different worlds I think.

your world of tyres



our world of tyres



Oi! where have my knobs gone!!!?

 

[clubby]

But 2many's experience of the knobs breaking off seems odd.
We don't sell that many knobblies, mostly schwalbe or conti for the deliveroo crowd,, but I don't see the knob failure happening

The first time I went to Whistler, I fitted a new 3C Maxxis to the rear of my bike. Was destroyed in a two week trip. The harder rubber was still there but the softer compound on top was gone.

Comparison to wearing out tyres back in the day isn’t really fair. Even when new, old tyres had no where near the grip modern ones do. Didn’t really matter if the knobs disappeared, as they didn’t do that much in the first place.

I find that as long as you’re not fitting stupidly soft compounds on the rear, then modern tyres last a surprising time for their performance.

When I started riding, the folding Ground Control S was the go to tyre. They were £20 in the early 90’s. Adjusted for inflation, that’s over £60 in today’s money. If you shop around you can find top spec Maxxis or Schwalbe for that. Top end Specialized tyres can be had for under £50.
Tyre patterns are also much more versatile than they used to be. I remember constantly swapping tyres for different conditions. Today I use the same ones all year road, albeit with a spare wheel built up with a Shorty for the depths of winter, but that’s a luxury and I could do without it if I had to. Wheel fits three bikes, so I use that to justify it to myself.

 

[2manyoranges]

Clubby - nice. And yep the inflation point is important (although most calculators make it about 40gbp see https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1996-to-present-value).

And you are pointing to a:

Cost-enjoyment-performance relation where the cost has stayed about the same, the enjoyment has gone up, and this is a function of the performance having risen.

Yep I think that’s true. But it’s still the case that with our changed performance and habits, the consumption of rubber has gone up very significantly - and my first post points to useable tyres being discarded into trash. Which I would say is a bad habit with many downstream consequences.

It for sure is a changing world….

 

[bikeworkshop]

Knobbly tyres lose effectiveness with loss of the sharp edges, so often the tyre looks very knobbly but no longer performs anything like the new one.
Many riders will fit new at this point, and the tyres don't really have a part-worn market.

Mountain biking can be very environmentally harmful, like many parts of the bike trade.

Look at the banks of 4wd suvs at the trail centre. Some people drive 100+ miles to ride 5.

 

[clubby]

my first post points to useable tyres being discarded into trash. Which I would say is a bad habit with many downstream consequences.

Useable by who? Side knobs tend to go before centre knobs, leaving a tyre with much reduced performance yet still looking ok on top. Who exactly is going to get use out of a tyre like that? Give it to a bike charity and they may fit it to a bike but I can't imagine there's much call for a steady stream of 2.5 super sticky tyres at those places.

My jeans tend to wear out around the crotch/arse area. The rest of the jeans may still be fine but that doesn't mean I'm still going to wear them into town.

What we need is legislation to force easy recycling of these things. Without easy access to recycling, people are just going to put them in trash. And don't think that all those people on this site that never throw away tyres are off the hook. You are never going to use them all and what do you think the poor sod that has to clear out your shed when you die is going to do with it all?

 

[2manyoranges]

Drat must change my jean-wearing habits. I am a bit scruffy these days. The useability lightbulb lit up a bit when a guy had a huge pile of Spesh 29 and 27.5 and dumped them on me saying ‘these are done, finished…’ and I agreed to dispose of them - they were VERY sad - lots of stuck on sealant, and some quite big holes. I went through them as a bit of an afterthought …. First one could be repaired with a dart. Second one just needed soaking and brushing to get the sealant off - thankless task but do-able, the third was indeed dead and went to the recycling centre, the fourth needed a decent plug-and-wire patch but was almost new. And so on. Out of a pile of ten or so tyres only 2 sent to the recycling centre. After cleaning and patching, one of them did thousands of miles in Thetford, notoriously wearing of knob edges. Another went to a friend who used it for ages on his mtb-cum-gravel thing. And I am very picky about tyre performance (once bitten twice shy). Was this just a one-off incident? Nope. It stimulated me to look at tyres which people had or were about to write off. It upset me quite a bit. A lot of tyres were destined for disposal when a bit of work would extend their use for ages. I love a fresh purple stripe Magic Mary or a Terragrippppp 120tpi Assegai. They are nice. They are grippy. They make me smile. But I try to keep my waste to the lowest level possible.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Drat must change my jean-wearing habits. I am a bit scruffy these days. The useability lightbulb lit up a bit when a guy had a huge pile of Spesh 29 and 27.5 and dumped them on me saying ‘these are done, finished…’ and I agreed to dispose of them - they were VERY sad - lots of stuck on sealant, and some quite big holes. I went through them as a bit of an afterthought …. First one could be repaired with a dart. Second one just needed soaking and brushing to get the sealant off - thankless task but do-able, the third was indeed dead and went to the recycling centre, the fourth needed a decent plug-and-wire patch but was almost new. And so on. Out of a pile of ten or so tyres only 2 sent to the recycling centre. After cleaning and patching, one of them did thousands of miles in Thetford, notoriously wearing of knob edges. Another went to a friend who used it for ages on his mtb-cum-gravel thing. And I am very picky about tyre performance (once bitten twice shy). Was this just a one-off incident? Nope. It stimulated me to look at tyres which people had or were about to write off. It upset me quite a bit. A lot of tyres were destined for disposal when a bit of work would extend their use for ages. I love a fresh purple stripe Magic Mary or a Terragrippppp 120tpi Assegai. They are nice. They are grippy. They make me smile. But I try to keep my waste to the lowest level possible.

We do what we can
And constantly improve.

If you want tip top performance, your environmental credentials must suffer.

I glue my shoes back together 2 or 3 times before moving them on, by which time the soles are pretty worn through.
I admit, they don't look great by then, they might be a reduction in comfort and grip.
But I've got twice the mileage than they were designed for.

 

[LondonClassic]

What we need is legislation to force easy recycling of these things. Without easy access to recycling, people are just going to put them in trash.

Or frontloading the recycling cost at the point of sale, so costs are already covered.