Mountain biking is a great way to get outdoors, however there are certain things that you will need to do in order to take care of your bike so that your mountain bike stays in good running order for a long time. One of the most common things that you will need to do is to take care of your tires and to replace them when needed with new ones.

Since no one want to waste money buying new tires when their old ones are working just fine, there are five main things that you can look at to see if it is time to replace your tires. Not only will I be going over each one, but I will also mention where personal preference might play a part in deciding.

1. The Rubber Is Hardening

When the rubber of a tire starts getting hard and dry then this is a clear sign that the tire is getting old. Sometimes these tires may not even have seen much if any time on the trails at all, it is simply that the rubber is aging. The rubber sometimes even looks like a slightly different color in the areas that it is hard, and it does not really feel like rubber at all anymore once it fully hardens.

One of the things that can contribute to the rubber of a tire getting hard is it being out in the weather, and in particular in hot and dry weather or just sitting out in the sun. For this reason, it is a good idea to help your tires to last longer by storing your bike in a shed or a garage or something so that they are out of direct sunlight and also not stored in an attic or something that is hot.

As the drying out of the rubber gets worse it will lead to small cracks that will get bigger and bigger. At first the rubber will harden only on the outside, but gradually as the cracks let air down deeper it will harden further down into the rubber.

If you have a tubeless tire on your mountain bike then this is particularly dangerous. This is because a tire that has hard rubber instead of soft will not have any flex to it, and the cracks are far more likely to deepen even more when you hit a bump on the trail.

If you ride on a tubeless tire that is hard and dry like this then you risk the crack breaking all of the way through when you hit a hard bump, leading to a very bad blowout that may end up with your getting hurt.

At the very least you will then have no choice but to try to patch the tire until you can replace it, but even if the patch is working good and you think that you can get away with riding on it still, you should know that this tire will be just as likely to crack somewhere else. So, unless you enjoy patching up tires, then you will definitely need to replace it at this point.

If the rubber is hard but there are no cracks or anything else that you can see, then you do have another option. There are a couple of different things that you can do in order to soften up the rubber again if you are willing to buy what it takes to do this.

Some bikers swear by brake fluid for this, while others say olive oil is better, and still others use something that is called hot lap. Whichever one you try, you should keep in mind that you will not only have to buy this but if it doesn’t work you will still have to buy a new tire. You should also remember that this will take a while and may require a few applications depending on just how hard the rubber is and how much of it is hard.

2. The Tread Is Worn Thin

This can vary wildly from one tire to the next, with thicker tires taking longer for the tread to wear thin and tires that start off being thin needing to be replaced more often because of this. You can tell when the tread is worn by a couple of different ways.

Firstly of all, some tires have wear indicators in the form of certain lines on the tire that you can look at to see if it is worn. Other than that though seeing how much wear a tire has is still pretty easy. When you get a new tire there will be knobs of some kind on it depending on the tire you choose to get. Over time these knobs will get worn down and they will become smooth with the rest of the tire.

These knobs serve a variety of purposes, one of which is to help your tire grip the trail and especially to help you make turns, come to a stop, and other things. If this is really important to you either because you ride frequently over slick terrain or you want to make sure that your bike has good grip for quick turns, then you will want to replace your tires when theses knobs are worn down.

However, if you are not picky and are more interested in getting as much out of a tire as possible, then you can keep going a little while longer. This will also make you take longer to come to a complete stop too. Usually you can tell by feeling the tire how thin the rubber of the tread is getting.

If you get to the point where you can see the threads of the tire or the tire belt then you have gone too far and need to replace your tire before you do any more riding on it anywhere. The reason why it is dangerous to ride after the rubber is worn away in spots is because there is only a very thin layer holding the air in or protecting your tube depending on what kind of tire you are using. The threads in the tire are not made to be up against the ground and are very easily punctured, which could result in a serious blow out.

One way to help the tread last as long as possible it to switch your rear tire with your front tire. The reason why this helps your tires to last longer is because of the fact that the back tire wears differently than the front on does.

Since the front tire is the one that is used to turn with, it wears more on the sides of the tire. However, since the back tire only has to follow in line with the front tire, it tends to wear down the middle. Switching them then lets the front tire get worn in the middle of the tread, and the back tire get worn down on the sides and therefore gets you the most use for your money.

3. It Develops A Bubble Or A Deformity

Sometimes there is not really an explanation for why a tire develops a deformity or a bubble in the sidewall or somewhere. This can be caused by a manufacturing problem when it was being made, in which case this is most likely to happen within the first few hundred miles of you riding with it while it is still pretty new.

While this can be a bit of a pain to replace if you just bought that tire to replace you last tire, it is never safe to ride with a tire that has a deformity or a bubble in it. This is because, just like a balloon that has a pocket off to the side for whatever reason, the tire will simply keep making that bubble bigger and bigger when you hit bumps or anything that puts pressure on the tire.

Eventually this bubble will burst and you will end up with a blowout which is not likely to be able to be patched. Having a blowout on the trail can be really dangerous, especially if you are going at high speeds, but even if you are only going at a walking pace on your mountain bike a blowout is never something that is fun to experience.

If you accidentally put too much air in the tire it can cause a bubble to form. Also, even if you do not put too much pressure in the tire, if you are riding at close to the maximum amount of pressure that a tire can hold and then you land on a rock at the end of a big jump this can sometime cause this effect to happen as well.

Other things that can cause deformities is that the inner tube in a tubed tire can sometimes get twisted as you are putting it on or taking it off, making it sometimes seem like there is a little bit of a lump there. The tire can also feel like it has a deformity in it if the wheel rim is bent or out of shape, so make sure where the deformity is before you assume it is the tire.

4. There Are A Number Of Patches In It

Sometimes a tire can last a long time with patches in it, they have even been known to last all the way until the tread of the tire wears out and the tire then needs to be replaced for that reason. Some of this depends on what kind of patch you use and how well you apply it.

There are two main ways that you can fix a hole in a tire. One way is with a plug kit which is where you insert a rubbery plug firmly into the hole so that it fills up the hole and prevents any more air from leaking out. In order for this to work well you have to make sure that the area is as clean as possible so that there is no dirt or anything in the hole.

Any water, mud, dirt, or debris from whatever punctured it might prevent the plug from getting a good grip and staying where you want it too. The other thing that you have to do with this one is to make sure that you plug the hole as tightly as you possibly can, some of which comes with practice.

The other way is by the use of a patch which goes on the inside of the tire and has a sticky part that makes a seal around the hole. When you air up your tire again after applying the patch the air pushes on the patch and helps to hold it in place.

For this kind of a patch you need to once again make sure that the area is as clean as possible and not wet or the patch will not stick nearly as well. Some brands do tend to stick better and last longer than others, however you should never assume that it will stick well if you re-stick it due to putting it on crookedly the first time.

It is a fairly common practice for mountain bikers to use patched tires as their spares if they feel that the patch is a good one and know that it will hold air fine. You do not want to be riding a bike tire that has too many patches though, so if you have any more than two or three patches in a tire then you should get a new one to replace it even if you keep that one as a spare.

5. It Is Not Holding Air

There are a variety of reasons why a tire is not holding air like it should be, more than one of which is cause for replacing you tire. One reason is that it has too many patches and that it simply cannot hold air anymore. But even if a tire does not have a lot of patches to it – or any patches at all – it can still leak air, especially if the terrain that you do some of your mountain biking over has a lot of thorns.

These can eventually affect you bike to where there are too many small holes for the sealant to keep up with and the thorns can be cactus thorns, bramble thorns, or even other things like glass if there is any on the trail.

If you are wearing you tire tread really thin you can also get to the point where you tire is not holding air very well. As the rubber gets thinner it gets easier for the air to find ways out of the tire sometimes, more so if you are riding it past the point where you are supposed to.

A tire will also leak air if the seal is not right, but this is usually the case when you first put the tire on. But sometimes there are other things that can affect the seal of the tire on the rim such as a crash of some kind, and this is another reason why you should go over your whole bike after you have even a minor crash in order to pick up small things like this.

Conclusion

When you do decide that it is time to replace the tires on your mountain bike, you then have to decide what you are going to do with your old tire. There are all kinds of things that you can do with old tires, depending on exactly what state they are in when you decide that they are too worn for you to keep riding on them.

If they are still in good condition and only have been worn down on the tread too much to suit your needs, then you can potentially keep it as a spare. The same goes for if you had to patch a hole in a tire but the patch seems to be doing a great job and you simply want to have the security of an unpatched tire for a long trail.

On the other hand, if your tire has no hope of being used as a spare then you can find a place to recycle it so that it can get cut up and turned into the rubber playground stuff that is becoming more common. Most bike shops have at least one or two ideas of ways to put the old rubber to good use, and if you are the crafty type or know someone who is then there are a number of crafts that you can use old bike tires for.

One of the lesser known things that you can do with bike tires is to use them as 3D printing material sometimes. This option is much cheaper than buying the material that is specifically made for this, and even though it does not work for everything it at least helps to cut back on costs.