Old tire............
I just bought a 1997 Heritage with 1,240 original miles. Garage kept it's entire life, so the sun hasn't baked the rubber. And since they've got a tube inside, beings they're on spoked rims, is it safe to run these tires? There is no cracking what so ever on the tires. I've ridden it at 60 mph and it is as smooth as can be.
If they didn't have tubes inside I would replace the tires right away, but I'm thinking with tubes inside, the chance of a tire "blowing" is zip. If the tube goes bad it would be a slow leak out, right?
They are 17 years old!
Throw a new set of tires on the bike right away.
Your life, your safety and someone else's safety is worth more than $500-$600.
I wouldn't even use 17 year old tires on a car.
Whether you see cracks on the tires or not, they are dried out and will fail.
But again, there's a TUBE holding the air, not the tire itself. I'm not a stupid man, I'm a journeyman tool and die maker, but I don't know the good or bad of running these tires. And unless someone here has experience or knowledge of tire failure in a spoked rim with old tires, we're all just guessing. I don't want to sound rude, but I'm looking for someone that has known of cases where a tire failed with a tube. I personally don't know of ANY and at 54 years old I've got years of riding and 100,000's of miles under my butt.
I'm not cheap, but I also don't want to just **** away $600.00 when the tires with TUBE on it now will hold up fine???
So, if you know of failure, let me know. Otherwise it's all speculation.
Thanks
When a tire fails, it doesn`t necessarily mean it simply loses air.
Sometimes tires can have catastrophic failures.
If the tire fails, you are on your ***, tube or no tube.
Riding on 17 year old tires would be foolish, to put it lightly.
Last edited by Dan89FLSTC; Jun 14, 2014 at 08:06 PM.












