when is it worth replacing your tire?

so i got a double-puncture in my tube last week from some unlucky combo of gravel bits that got stuck in my tire. it actually happened twice; i replaced the tube the first time and then patched it the second, adding a paper deflector to keep it from happening again.

THEN today i get home, bring my bike in and hear a horrible hissing sound... i see that there's a fairly large - ~2mm - chunk of glass embedded in the tire. oy! should i just give up on this bum tire and drop $20something on a new one or patch again and continue?

new tire

:(

it's only like 4 months old

and it's supposed to be all kevlar and shit

RIP lil buddy

alternatively stop riding over glass. how much tire pressure are you inflating to? how often are you checking tire pressure?

how often do you inflate your tires? under and over inflated tires are the biggest problem. if your tire is under inflated and too soft, you're wheels are essentially pincushions.

xpost

i inflate basically every other day. these tires are 120 psi

and i try not to ride over glass when i can haha!

i only use gatorskins/armadillos (bombproof) tires on my commuter bike anymore, it was too expensive otherwise. sure it's more upfront but they last 2-3x longer than anything else i've tried.

stop eating all that poutine s1ocks

I've been using Vredestein Fortezza Tricomp tyres this year and have only had one puncture so far, which is pretty good going. Both front and back have up to 20 little rips in them where I've had to deflate and remove little flints or shards of glass, but that doesn't seem to have affected them. I'll probably replace them at the end of this season.

how are they in the wet?

i replaced the tire

and stopped eating all that poutine

Vredestein Update: Since I posted two weeks ago, a clubmate saw all the rips in my tyres and said I ought to replace them before I got a puncture. On Friday I was in the middle of nowhere doing a 54-mile ride in the New Forest in the rain when I got a puncture in my back tyre. Fortunately I managed to change the inner tube and carry on: I feared I wouldn't be able to get the last 10cm of tyre back over the rim (this has been a constant thumb-wrecking problem for me in the past), but this wasn't a problem - maybe the tyre gets more pliable after a lot of use?

Anyway, I decided enough was enough and bought myself another couple of tyres (Vredestein Fortezza Tricomp again) at a worrying cost of £72. I've just finished putting them on, at great cost to my thumbs. I've just checked my nerdy ride log spreadsheet and worked out that the last pair of tyres had only done 1,554 miles. Does that sound like a reasonable amount, or is that a bit on the low side?

My Ultremos don't seem to manage over about 2000 miles before getting too cut up to keep. But they're lightweight racing tyres that aren't meant for endurance. So it does sound a bit on the low side, but then you have no idea whether you got a puncture because the tyre was cut up (answer: probably not unless the holes are really big).

2000 miles is a lot for ultremos!

Yeah, I just replaced the last one after 1600 miles - with a Stelvio Raceguard for, I hope a bit more protection and durability.