Tyre life

[Katman]

How long would you leave a set of tyres before replacing them?
Not been able to get hold of the mechanic to ask if he replaced the Pop Up tyres but thinking about it they've been on the rims for about 15 years although they've only covered a few 1000 miles. Would you replace them cos they're old & poss perished or leave them on?
The tyres are BT45's

[pookie]

You can check the age of a tyre on its sidewall, five years is the maximum a tyre should be on a bike, I don't think that anybody would chuck a perfectly good set just because of their age though, I've had three sets on my kwak kr-1 in 25 years and its only covered 12000 miles from new so that works out at about 8 years and 4000 miles a pair, none of the tyres wore their tread out though, the last pair (Bridgestone bt92's) had cracking actually between the tread pattern, the sidewalls and tread depth were fine. I think that with such safety related parts as tyres, brakes and steering its better to be safe than sorry.

[Kryten]

Both CMM and PS have run articles on tyres recently and sugggest 5 years shelf life for tyres. Although I know some one who races old Brit stuff and some of the tyres they're using are vintage as well

[sparki]

15 is stretching it a bit though i think.... i'd look into replacing them tbh.