Eating up rear tires!!

[Potato_In_Exhaust]

OK, with the china motor and their clutches..... it's eating up a lot of rubber on my rear tire!! Is it the same for you guys? What can I do to improve the longevity of my rear tires? I haven't even ridden that much and treads are almost gone!!

What kind of tires would you guys recommend for longevity and performance, but for a reasonable price?

 

[allen standley]

it's eating up a lot of rubber on my rear tire!!
Make sure the tire is equal measure from right to left centered to stays. Could be your tire is a little aimed right or left in relation to the frame. Just my immediate thought.

 

[Slogger]

Wearing out tires, huh? Maybe just cheap tires. I like continentals for about 20 apiece.
I don't know how good they'll wear but they are sticky on wet roads which is what I needed.
Check for good chain clearance, too. But that wouldn't wear the tread.

 

[leo]

had the exact same problem, i went through 3 brand new rear tires super fast.
a dual pull brake handle stopped it instantly.

just be sure to keep "most" of your stopping power on the rear wheel, somewhere around 60% rear and 40% front. make sure the front wheel doesn't completely lock up, even under full pull. that is the recipe for a wreck...

 

[xseler]

Also, be sure to keep pedaling when you 'pop' the clutch to start the engine.

I also run Continental's and get great mileage out of them......

 

[Tony01]

Fact of life. I get about 2k from a cst cyclops @44psi.

 

[Tony01]

had the exact same problem, i went through 3 brand new rear tires super fast.
a dual pull brake handle stopped it instantly.

just be sure to keep "most" of your stopping power on the rear wheel, somewhere around 60% rear and 40% front. make sure the front wheel doesn't completely lock up, even under full pull. that is the recipe for a wreck...

This is completely wrong. Front brake is the most important. It's all I've used for a few months. Wished I had my rear brake hooked up on rainy days tho.

 

[leo]

wrong? what happens when you lock up a front wheel while trying even the slightest turn?

you bleed for a while... then if you're lucky enough to NOT get hurt too bad, you push your trashed out bike back home.

 

[TheNecromancer13]

wrong? what happens when you lock up a front wheel while trying even the slightest turn?

you bleed for a while... then if you're lucky enough to NOT get hurt too bad, you push your trashed out bike back home.

You should be braking before you need to turn, not during the turn. I almost never use the rear brake on my bike and have had no issues.

 

[leo]

with all due respect, there is no way to know which car is going to pull out in front of you before they do it. or the loose sand/gravel you didn't know was there...

IMHO, both brakes should be in excellent working condition and adjusted properly.

a dual pull handle stopped my tire wear problem (the OG question), and increased my stopping power. i can come to a dead stop very quickly, on any ground, dirt or street, turning or not turning.

i remember using my foot on the front tire as a brake when i was a kid, but that doesn't mean i would "choose" to do that now.

either way, i wish you both nothing but the best. no hard feelings, just a discussion among friends. i am glad to have "like minded friends" to have these discussions with.

 

[Potato_In_Exhaust]

It all depends on how one rides..... with MotoGP racers, some of them hardly use rear brakes while others apply rear brakes generously. But then again the way they ride, it's to the limit so I doubt regular bike riding would require such precision and hard braking until you're in a situation where you're about to eat food through a straw if you don't take evasive action and have good strong brakes. With that said, I only run front brakes...... and shotty worned out wrongly adjusted brake at that. For the life of me I can not set up brake systems on bicycles, I've tried, lawd knows I've tried. Anyway, I run 26" tires which are more designed for asphalt, it's not the knobby kinds, if that matters. I was thinking perhaps I can apply some sort of coating onto the tires, which isn't slippery but will give a bit more protection on the tire compound.

I guess centrifugal clutch does come with it's quirks after all.

 

[TheNecromancer13]

I agree that both brakes need to be working well, I was just saying that I rarely need my rear brake.

 

[Tony01]

A front brake won't lock up under normal conditions. A wheel locks when the braking force causes a tire to slip and stop moving. A rear brake however will lock up and lose traction very easily. In the rain or dirt yes it is easy to lock the front, but pretty much won't happen riding straight on dry pavement. And yea you should not be braking in a turn.

 

[leo]

i probably ride 90% off-road, kind of ironic if you consider that you can legally ride anything you want on the roads here, and in all the local towns.

that was the reason i tested the dual pull on my first mountain bike, steep dirt trails where you have no choice but to brake hard on the downhill turns.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

I have a problem with some trails though that have so much gravel that wheels lock and skidding happens, so the amount of lever pressure has to be just a little at times.

Other trails I can haul on the brakes. I have centrifugal clutch that for a while as I decelerate from speed, I have engine braking till shoes unlock on the bell. I have separate front and rear brakes, knobby tires front and back.

I never had any flats. Seems maybe I go places that there are no thorns. Just recently though the rear tire has a bump, seems the bead may be bad now.

I think I may have damaged the bead when I went to remove and install in the drop out the rear wheel and the rim brake shoes caught on the tire. Now I make sure to make slack in the brake cable. No quick release so I was also deflating the tire. I'll look close at the rim and see if it is damaged.

I have on order two more tires. The front wheel uses a cheap 11 dollar tire from REI and it is still fine. The same tire I could not find available in the rear size. I use 26 rear and a 24 front. Still, I found a 30 dollar tire I will see how it works. It is one made with knobby specifically for rear wheel.

https://www.wtb.com/products/velociraptor

https://www.rei.com/product/615639/kenda-k831-24-x-195-tire

 

[EffortlessCruizers1]

Check out the Continental Town and Country tires. I run 26x2.1 and they run excellent!

 

[Cylon]

I like to keep my rear and front brake separate because I drag my rear wheel a lot on trails to break the rear loose on downhills and tight turns, its ok to brake on turns just don't use your front brake and turn the front wheel in the opposite direction of which way your leaning.

@ OP; I believe you are wearing your tires so fast because you havent yet worked all the bugs out of your bike and from your last tread, ( http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?t=62764 ) you had said the rear wheel was locking up and had feelings of drag.

That certainly is the reason your wheel is wearing so fast. Take the time and fix the clutch or pay someone else to do it.