Hitchcocks Forum

I looked at Avon's website and there is a date code on their car tyres, but I am either looking in the wrong place or cannot find any info relating to dating my bike tyres.


I got a speedmaster on the front, and the rear tyre has SM and MKII and from the tread I think it is the safety master mkII which is recommended as a read the the speed master.



The tread looks ok, but these were fitted when I bought the bike and so are a minimum of 14 months old. I really wanted to be able to check if they were under five years old for peace of mind, otherwise I will change them anyway.



So does anyone know if they have a date stamp or code please?

was supposed to read...



recommended as a read the the speed master.

or even

recommended as a rear to the speed master.



GRRRRRR!

Aha, - Skid masters, I have at least 5 of these stacked up - i'll go have a look . If I remember right there should be a string of numbers denoting month/ year in a cartouche....

Scalyback: Just had a look at them all - the cartouche is there on all of them. They are all blank.Looks like they dont fill them in like most of the competition . They are also rather small and easily missed. I wouldn't worry too much though, SMs aren't noted for either their rapid wear or cracking and disintegration. Your rims will probably fall apart first.I have 4x SMs on my 2WD outfit (1 is the spare)where they have a very hard life - and they're still going strong

I wouldn't judge a tyre on age alone. If it's been out in the sun a lot it will deteriorate more. If it's been kept inside it will last much longer. Keeping the bike's weight off them helps a lot as well. At the speeds that Bullets go I wouldn't worry over much. Obviously, any cracking or other damage would mean a replacement is due.

Or you could always fill in the cracks with black boot polish??

Good enough for Burt Munro....!!

(Tongue firmly in cheek).