Read your tire date codes

"Tires are the only thing that keeps you from kissin' the pavement on a daily basis. Take care of them." - Verne

Think about this: that barn find has been in the barn for a reason... and the tires didn't get any better with age. Nobody parks a bike because it runs like a champ!

More than any other system on your motorcycle, the tires are critical to your safety. That seems pretty obvious, yet many new riders and used-bike buyers don't give a first or second thought to the age of the tires. An older tire can still look brand new, especially if you're used to four-wheel vehicles, where the physical demands on the tires are very different from the forces at play on a motorcycle.

The generally accepted safe age for motorcycle tires is five years, and I saw firsthand how quickly a tire that's exactly 5 years old can fail. I'd picked up an old bike and the rubber looked good; the tread was clean and pliable. However, after only 100 miles, cracks started to develop between the tread blocks. Cracks are failures, and they can split at any moment.

When you go looking for a used motorcycle, knowing the age of the tires is a great bargaining tool on price. You'll have an idea of when the bike was last maintained, and how long it has been sitting. Old tires also mean old valve stems, which can fail suddenly, too.

A motorcycle tire won't give you a lot of warning before it fails, and when it does, there are very few options for landing safely. If you lose a back tire you can generally get to the side of the road. But a front-tire blowout is dangerous at almost any speed, and recovering safely takes more skill than most new riders have. The best insurance is a new set of tires: even the cheapest tires you can get will be better than old rubber.

What are the date codes?

In the US and many other places, it's a four-digit code molded into the sidewall of the tire, at the end of a long series that describes the tire like a VIN number. The last two digits are the year it was made, and they can tell you a lot about how to price the bike as you buy it. The first two digits are the week of the year, and are more helpful to the manufacturer. On the tire in the photo, 0117 means the first week of 2017.

So, if you haven't checked the age of the tires on that used motorcycle you bought last year, make sure you look as part of your seasonal readiness check. At the very least, you'll know you have good tires on the road, and at worst, you'll get new tires.