Deciding when to retire tires.

[Asudef]

Is patching tires a thing?
How long do you all ride tires until or what criteria do you use when deciding to retire a set?

Reason for question:
I got a pair of used Challenge Paris-Roubaix and they still ride great with decent tread left but being such a soft tire, there's a few holes where debris can wedge into and cause a leak. There's a very slow leak on the rear likely caused by this same issue. I flatted the weekend and am surprised that it waited this long to happen. Its booted now but feel like at some point, it will need too many to be reasonable.

It also looks like its been patched previously from the inside, there's a tan strip of tape where the hole is thats now worn through.

Is it a thing to cover up the hole from the outside with rubber cement? Are there products to patch tires from the inside?

[dbnm]

A new one costs $50? How much is your time worth if you can ride or are stuck on the side of the road?

Sounds like the tire is ready to be replaced.

[peanutgallery]

Life is too short for janky rubber, crack open your wallet and get a new one. In fact, buy 2...it is written somewhere that they have to match

[many_styles]

Life is too short for janky rubber, crack open your wallet and get a new one. In fact, buy 2...it is written somewhere that they have to match


Seriously.

You take time out of your day to go for a ride. Why waste it on account of possible faulty equipment that could end it? If you go on a 1-2 hr ride that more than makes up for the cost of new tires.

Cheers,
Alex


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jpw]

Life is too short for janky rubber, crack open your wallet and get a new one. In fact, buy 2...it is written somewhere that they have to match

Where does it say that? :-)

[jpw]

Clinchers? The one thing that makes me hesitate about the seasonal timing of new tyres is how tight the bead can be. I don't like wrestling with a tyre at the side of the road in cold and wet weather.

The rubber on new tyres tends to need 'bedding in' a bit to make them a little more puncture resistant. When they're brand spanking new the rubber seems a touch too soft. Good for grip, but not quite so resistant to pointy things. Depending on where in the world you are now might be a good time to get the bead stretching and rubber 'hardening' under way.

[godfrey1112000]

Clinchers? The one thing that makes me hesitate about the seasonal timing of new tyres is how tight the bead can be. I don't like wrestling with a tyre at the side of the road in cold and wet weather.

The rubber on new tyres tends to need 'bedding in' a bit to make them a little more puncture resistant. When they're brand spanking new the rubber seems a touch too soft. Good for grip, but not quite so resistant to pointy things. Depending on where in the world you are now might be a good time to get the bead stretching and rubber 'hardening' under way.

:help:

[Divebomb]

What Peanut Gallery said.... Preach PG!
Life is too short for janky rubber, crack open your wallet and get a new one. In fact, buy 2...it is written somewhere that they have to match

[spank]

This question reminded me of one of my first cycling friends, Adolph...

But first, obviously the answer to the question is, "When the cords start to show through". That said, I have never used nor even held a tubeless tire, so not sure if your question is unique to them...

As for normal training clinchers, so long as the tube can stay inside the casing, run it. I used to rotate tires front to back to get more life out of them. And I even came up with my own flat-prevention thing: I would (And still do on one set of wheels!) run a tire inside of a tire: I have some continental tires that most of the tread wore off, so I put them inside of a slightly larger tire-- in this case, it's a 700x23 inside of a 700x25, and of course the tube is inside of all of that. Rides like rocks, but great for commuting.

Back to Adolph...

I was still a HS kid living at home. He was college aged, and an electrician apprentice and living out on his own renting a room in a sort of boarding house setup with a hot plate and a microwave in his room and a shared bathroom. We'd go ride from time to time. There was a period when he had no money, and I do mean NO money. He would tell me he couldn't go ride sometimes because he didn't get paid until end of the week and didn't want to need to eat more by going on a bike ride...

What Adolph did for one set of tires that had gone bald-- so bald that the cords were showing down the entire circumference of the middle of the rear tire, is he bought a tube of "Shoe Goo", which is a rubber-cement like glue in a squeeze tube used for repairing athletic shoes, and he built some of that up on his rear tire! He said it ran rough but it worked long enough to allow him to be able to ride a little and wait until he had some $ for a new rear tire.