Quote Originally Posted by slinky1 View Post
I ride a Specialized Ruby Expert Triple. Bought it in March and it has over 1800 miles on it. A riding buddy took a look at my tires and recommened I buy new ones. HUH? I've only had the bike for a few months??? I have been looking at buying some and now I feel completely overwhelmed. I don't race, I prefer long weekend rides and fit in what I can during the week. I live in Denver so I ride the mountains around here a lot. Does anybody have any recommendations on how to buy new tires? Oh, my buddy also recommended a new chain. It sounds like I need a lesson on bike maintenance. Any good resources you can recommend?
Bike tires, like car tires, wear out from use, either by wearing off the tread, or sometimes the sidewalls start splitting. My experience with some of the "good" tires that come on new bikes is that they wear out at about 1,500 to 2,000 miles. I just swapped out a pair of Vittoria Rubinos that were flat-free for 2600 miles, but when they started to show wear, it was time to "get Baby a new pair of shoes," so to say.

It's also a fairly good idea with that sort of mileage to swap out your chain once a year. There's no need to swap out the cassette unless there's significant wer on particular cogs, in fact getting a new chain every year or so helps the cogs last longer -- a worn chain wears them down more.

Tom