Noticed this the other day

Rear tyre has a gouge half the diameter of the tyre, about 10mm wide and down to the steel belt. About 2000km old.

Anyone seen this before?

 and no!!! no burn outs on this one (yet)

A mate of mine has a softail custom & the same happened to his tyre after a long run up north of a couple of thousand k's he put it down to the long straight roads & maybe the heat of the roads up there? but 2000 k's is a bit rough I got over 12000 out of my last tyre

Tyre pressure seems to be critical, there is apparently  a connection with tyre pressure and cetrifical forces at speed.....bit like ya see drag cars tyres distort and grow in the middle.....

Tyre compound, where they are made, how old they are before ya buy it etc....Many questions not too many answeres...

I have not had too good a run with tyres......seems more to do with the wider ones as well.....

Bt

I have just had 1 year service and both tyres are almost shot. Front is worn on the right side and back is in the centre. I am not surprised, but would have thought I would get a few more K's.
Ricers got more milage and could lean into a corner.
I am going to try different tyre brand and hope for the best.

Take that one back for a warranty claim.

Yeah, but...... I don't believe this is wear related.

This is either

• A strip has let go (tyre fault) or..........
• I've bottomed out and something under the guard, like a protruding bolt has done the damage. I can't remember bottoming out. In fact I would say it's impossible as I'm only a little fella and I can't see any protruding bolts or.........
• When I 'locked it up' (that was a surprise, broad siding down the road) on a wet road in Darwin a couple of weeks ago, this may have done the damage. May have caught a stone or the like

There is still ~4mm meat on both sides of the gouge

I'm more inclined to think it was the lock up that did it due to the chatter marks on either side of the gouge

Was just asking if this damage is a common thing

I rekon it's probably waaay out of balance .Or maybe just a dud tyre, iether way it's most definiatly Fucked !

The tyre is basically bald in the middle !

Sorry to say it looks like tyre wear to me.

What compound and load rating is the tyre ? Have you run this type of tyre before ?

Well here's mine after this weekend....... Done 4650km......

Metzler 880.....too soft for the softy...... going back to Dunlops D407

Bt

that tyre will do 8000ks its tyre pressure that causes it to wear like that, keep it bang on 38psi with the next one and see the difference. the front tyre will wear on the right cos of road camber, it will wear the back of the tread off before the front of the groove

Think I got it pretty well sussed. (Stealer rekons it's normal and not a defect as he would)

But then I discovered something interesting the other day. Ya see I got a new tyre fitted (Avon Cobra) on the weekend and put the wheel back on. Checked the pressure and it was at 52...ps.... f'kn.... i !!!

Now I know they put air in to pop the tyre on the rim, but you would think they would adjust down to a normal running pressure.

Thats where I reckon I went wrong. Ya see I didn't check the pressure of the tyre in this thread. I took it for granted that they would put the riding pressure in when they fitted it 2000km ago, just like tyre joints do with my car.

Lesson learnt !!!

Mechanic probably had a text message come to his mobile phone just as he was about to release the extra air, and then forgot.