Tyre pressure, tread and age: how to check your motorcycle tyres

Your tyres are the only thing touching the road. How to read pressure the right way, spot worn tread, and find out how old a tyre really is.

Two contact patches, each about the size of a credit card, are all that keep a motorcycle upright in a corner or under hard braking. Low pressure makes a bike feel heavy and vague, overheats the tyre, and wears the edges. Worn tread cannot clear water, which matters on a wet Singapore expressway.

Checking pressure

1. Find the right pressures. They are in your owner's manual and usually on a sticker on the swingarm or chain guard. Use the bike's figures, not the maximum printed on the tyre wall.
2. Check the tyres cold, before riding or after the bike has stood for a few hours. A ride warms them up and raises the reading, so a warm tyre at the right number is actually under-inflated.
3. Remove the valve cap, press a good gauge squarely onto the valve and read it. Petrol-station gauges are often off, so keep your own.
4. Add air to bring it up to the figure. If it is high and the tyre is warm, leave it, and recheck when cold.
5. Refit the valve cap. It keeps dirt out of the valve.

Checking tread

• Look for the tread wear indicators: small raised bars inside the grooves, marked by a triangle or 'TWI' on the sidewall. When the tread is level with them, the tyre is worn out.
• Measure with a tread depth gauge across the middle and both shoulders. Commuting wears a flat strip down the centre first.
• Replace well before the limit if you ride in the wet a lot. Grip in rain drops off sharply as the grooves get shallow.
• Look for cracks in the sidewall or between the tread blocks, cuts, bulges, and anything stuck in the tread.

How old is your tyre?

Rubber hardens with age and heat, even on a tyre with plenty of tread. Find the DOT code on the sidewall: the last four digits are the week and year it was made. '2423' means week 24 of 2023. Many tyre makers advise having tyres over five years old inspected by a professional, and replacing them at ten years regardless of tread. When buying a bike or new tyres, check this date.

Replace the tyre if

• The tread is down to the wear indicators.
• There is a bulge, a deep cut, or a cord showing.
• A puncture is in the sidewall or shoulder, or is larger than a nail. Plugs are a get-you-home fix; ask a workshop.
• It is old and cracked, or the bike felt unstable after a hard impact with a kerb or pothole.