Sudden front tire slip

[WTLgrinda]

hi guys, just registered to this forum, been watching it and reading it for a while however.

I bought a 2010 Duke this march, brand new.
Great bike and i love it, really light and agile and torquy as hell, i love it.

however something really bad happened to me this week, i took the bike the whole day, was driving it agressively in twisty roads, had lots of fun. I came back home and slept for 3 hours then went back to meet some friends in town. It was about 7oclock, 10degree celcius outside.

First right curve i take on the bike, the front tire suddenly slips, the bike falls and i end up getting throw off the bike. The bike slides for about 50feets and stops. Get the bike up and head straight back home... nothing too bad (broken brake lever, side plastic scratched) so i leave the bike like that and decide that i'll fix it tomorrow.

Nothing is misalign so i just change the brake lever and head back to see whats up with the weird slipage... go in some right curves and the tire slips suddenly again. i wasn't leaned alot that time so it just suprised me...

I searched on some forums and saw that some people had the same problem with the dunlop, sudden tire slipage for no reason... the bike has 1000KM and i drove it really smoothly for the first 500km.. After inspecting the tire, i realized that it was starting to wear down in a weird way at a particular spot
i took a picture with my iphone, if you look closely, near the fender the tire is pretty weird, almost like a sponge, and lower it's more normal...

what do you guys think? i really feel uncomfortable driving the bike now.. i never know if it's gonna grip or not...

[kopfjager]

Check your tire pressure. Maybe go down a pound. (?)

[anzhsb]

Originally Posted by WTLgrinda

hi guys, just registered to this forum, been watching it and reading it for a while however.

I bought a 2010 Duke this march, brand new.
Great bike and i love it, really light and agile and torquy as hell, i love it.

however something really bad happened to me this week, i took the bike the whole day, was driving it agressively in twisty roads, had lots of fun. I came back home and slept for 3 hours then went back to meet some friends in town. It was about 7oclock, 10degree celcius outside.

First right curve i take on the bike, the front tire suddenly slips, the bike falls and i end up getting throw off the bike. The bike slides for about 50feets and stops. Get the bike up and head straight back home... nothing too bad (broken brake lever, side plastic scratched) so i leave the bike like that and decide that i'll fix it tomorrow.

Nothing is misalign so i just change the brake lever and head back to see whats up with the weird slipage... go in some right curves and the tire slips suddenly again. i wasn't leaned alot that time so it just suprised me...

I searched on some forums and saw that some people had the same problem with the dunlop, sudden tire slipage for no reason... the bike has 1000KM and i drove it really smoothly for the first 500km.. After inspecting the tire, i realized that it was starting to wear down in a weird way at a particular spot
i took a picture with my iphone, if you look closely, near the fender the tire is pretty weird, almost like a sponge, and lower it's more normal...

what do you guys think? i really feel uncomfortable driving the bike now.. i never know if it's gonna grip or not...

did you check the road condition ? I look at your picture and didn't see anything wrong with your tire.

[WTLgrinda]

yes i went back to the spot and looked closely at the road. It's clean, no oil/sand/whatever
I also checked the tire pressure, i was 1psi too high. But i ran the bike agressively all day and it was fine. I usually enter the curve i crashed at 50-55km/h, i tried entering it at 40 and felt the front slip sudenly then grip back...

i got some better pictures of the tire. I don't think this is normal? the tire looks like swiss cheese...

[anzhsb]

the cheese look was cause by the crash, the tire was sliding unevenly on the road.

[bajadog]

Originally Posted by anzhsb

the cheese look was cause by the crash, the tire was sliding unevenly on the road.

Good call. It does look like a drag or friction burn on the tire.

Not that you would ever find that exact piece of road, but
when I used to ride motard, my first drop was a bit of gravel.

Any chance you might have just hit some loose road surface?

[WTLgrinda]

i spoke with some local "bikers" today.

they told me to be very carefull when the sun starts to come down because the ground is still "froze" (im in quebec/canada).
In the afternoon the road is grippy because the sun is heating up the asphalt, but after 6o'clock the asphalt gets really cold because the ground is still frozen even if it's 9-10celcius. Those tire, from what i've heard, are really slipery when it's cold
and on top of that, since i just left home i didn't get to warm the tires up. The guys told me to wait until it's warmer to really see if the bike slips on me again.

At first i tought the tire was "cheesy" because of the crash too, but alot of people told me that a tire wouldn't look like that if it slided on asphalt. I guess im just gonna wait until it's warmer and try the bike again.

Thanks for all your input, i feel like i drove too agressively all day and forgot to slow down when it was time to

[anzhsb]

ohh, you are in quebec ... I didn't notice that . if you are running on stock tire the main issue is your tire already cool down which you negotiating the corner.

I am in malaysia which we will never have this problem. we dont even need to warm-up our tire

[Crissis]

you need to warm your tires before doing anything at all.

[bajadog]

Well thankfully you did not get pranged up.

I hope it was just a fluke spill for you.