Is this worth a worry?*
<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #575757; COLOR: #575757" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->OK Inmates, I’m new to both “adventure riding” and SmugMug so please bear with me. (This is my third attempt at this post after Safari’s spellchecker nuked the first two when clicking “ignore.”) Hopefully the reference photos will show up below.
Here’s the situation – I have aprox 250 miles on new set of Heidi K60s. Maybe 100 of which was fairly mellow dirt road – a few short easy rocky sections but mostly hard pack. I had the tires mounted by the dealer when in for the 6k service (sometimes I’m lazy.) PSI is 32 front, 36 rear. Tire pressure advise here at ADV seems to range greatly, from 36/38 on pavement to 16/20 on dirt. None the less, I did not air them down while on the dirt.
While checking out the tires in my garage today I notice a decent sized crack/split in the center-strip of the rear tire - it goes fairly deep. At first I thought, no big deal, probably just impact damage from a rock. But after looking closer, I notice the same type cracks, albeit smaller, at several other locations along the center-strip and they don’t look trail inflicted. Also found a crack developing along side and under one of the larger lugs just to the right of the center-strip. Front tire looks fine.
This is my first set of more dirt-oriented tires (Anakees prior) and I am not really sure what to expect in the way of wear and tear but at only 250 miles, to this novice eye, this particular tire hardly seem like it will make the reported 7-10k mile life span. Also looked at Apostolos’ photos of his tires with 3000 miles and did not see any similar cracking.
Questions –
Is this normal? Or, am I just suffering from ignorance and Noob-paranoia?
Anyone else experience the same?
Did I cause this myself by running PSI too high in just 100m of dirt?
I’m leaving in a few weeks to ride the CDR with my bro, should I be concerned at all about this tire?
Thanks ahead o wise ones.
Don
