I’ve managed to scrub off the green line, so all thats left is the remnants in the tread (green circle), but I’m not man enough to be able to get rid of the orange line :w00t: Back tyres had lines too, but I scrubbed those off at least!
Now off to get the missus pumice stone and get rid of than damned orange evidence…
Theyre usually colour co-ordinated indicators from the manufacturer of what compound has been used to make the tyre. Often, especially at competition level, teams dont want the exact compound that they have used to be evident and so the manufacturers leave erasable indications in the form of the lines that you see, instead of printing it on the tyre, so that brand new tyres can be diffrentiated by compound, but once used, the compound cannot be determined.
They literally erase with use - couple of laps at most circuits. Not such an easy thing to do on the road, so I wouldnt worry too much.
I dont think there will be a colour guide for the compounds online for the above reason. I only know a couple of them and for specific brands that I have used before.
Chap, I was pulling your leg by suggesting painting the tyre!! Bitumen may damage the compound of the tyre and could shorten the life of the tyre. Think you should speak to a tyre specialist before you ride it…
Well, on my bike I asked the dealer directly and he told me they are indicators of the lifetime/state of the tyres.
The inner line (yellow on mine) is usually the “wear in” indicator. When that stripe becomes invisible, the tyres are worn in and you can tell if they are spankers or not. As said, a couple of fast laps on your average track should shift these lines.
The outer line (red on mine) are “Replace this tyre” indicators. When you can’t see it anymore, the tread pattern is wearing thin and is in the realms of needing to be replaced, sort of like Tread Wear Indicators. On some bikes they extend further down than the tread wear indicators and are more like “Sh i t me mate, you’re running slicks now”. That’ll explain 2,000 miles of riding and no loss of line.
I don’t think they are compound indicators, because even if you rubbed them off, you’d still have little bits in the tread pattern (excusing slicks and wets, of course) that a determined rider could use to determine your compound.
Found this on web - appears to be aim’ed at cars rather than bikes but the prinicpal is probally the same
Although most tyres are made to very high quality standards, there are still variations in the thickness of the rubber, the steel belts and the radial webbing that form the structure. One consequence of the variations is a slight weight difference around the tyre. This is well known and easily cured by balancing the wheel and tyre.
A less well known effect of the variability is something called run-out – a measure of how straight the tyre will run if fitted to a wheel and allowed to roll along a flat level surface. Some will run straight and true, others will veer to the left or right in varying degrees. You will see an indication of this on most new tyres – have you ever noticed coloured lines running around the tread on your new tyre? Some of these are to give the tyre distributors easy to read information about where the tyre should be shipped to, but one of them will be a run-out indicator – usually red or blue, and the extreme left or right hand line. The nearer to the centre it is, the straighter the tyre will run, and which side of the centre it is denotes the direction of the run-out.
I thought I’d have to see a dentist for a while there…