Originally Posted by
bianchi10
what is the durability/life expectancy of most road tires?
I am currently riding on a set of Folding Vitorria Diamante Pro's and I have yet to have a flat since putting them on 600+ miles ago. This is a new experience for me since when I had the michelin pro 3 race tires on, I had a flat on almost EVERY ride! So needless to say this is a nice change. I was looking at my tires today and noticed several small "nicks" in them and it felt like the contact part of my tire was getting fairly thin. If I can remember correctly I could have swarn reading about people riding on a set of tires for 3,000+ miles? no/yes? Looking at my tires, I'm not sure they would last that long. In fact I was beginning to wonder if I needed to make another order for a set just incase these decide to go out on me. I'm sure the road surface is a deciding factor. I live in Portland Oregon where most of the roads I ride on are fairly good with the occasional rough concrete. I do my best to avoid glass and stay as far away from the for side of the road where all the glass, dirt and "stuff" gets blown to.
Depends on the tire, some tires have softer rubber that is intended to stick to the road surface, but can give lousy tire wear. Softer rubber is common on racing tires where the increased traction and higher speed cornering is worth the cost of more frequent tire changes. Other tires us a harder rubber and can last forever, good examples here are tires intended for commuting and touring, where durability and tire life are the deciding factors. The tire you specified is a racing tire.
Vittoria do have other tires, like in the Randonneur series, they should last longer although I have not tried them, then again I don't know about spending $30 plus shipping on a tire. Although over the winter when I replace the wheels on the road bike, I am thinking of going to 700C and might just put some nicer rubber on it
. The Kenda Krapola 27" tires on there now will be retired, by necessity. I don't know the mileage on those, they came with the bike.
The slick tires on my mountain bike have about 4500km (~ 2800 miles) on them and look like they did after a week of riding. One thing though, rear tires tend to wear faster then front tires, it's not uncommon to go through two rear tires in the time it takes to wear out a front tire. A lot of folks will semi-rotate the tires, they put a new tire on the front, the old front on the rear and discard the worn out rear,