Is it just me or has the build quality of tires dropped dramatically over the years? I've got a pair of continental cross country MTB tires from the nineties. Badly worn and dry but still soldiering on.
Seems like whatever I buy now, the sidewalls start to go pretty quickly.
A couple of possible reasons why:
- Rubber durometer has become way softer for performance tires in the last ten years especially. This is a good thing in general - it means the tires grip much better - but it does mean they're not as durable as earlier ones. "City" tires are still made fairly hard.
- If your old tires have had occasional use for a long time vs heavy use for a short time, the rubber may have hardened with age and thus have reached a point where it's very tough. This is true even in the sidewalls due to the vulcanized construction.
- Performance tires now tend to be lighter and have a higher threadcount than they did in the 90s. The reason for this is improved manufacturing technology and a general increase in quality at any given pricepoint - what would have been a $100 race tire in '98 is now a $50 training tire now. Again, this is a good thing for performance but can be a bad thing for durability, and again this doesn't apply to city/commuting tires, more to proper road and mountain ones.
In their defense, the Marathon/Armadillo/Gatorskin etc are all much tougher, better tires than anything you could buy 20 years ago.