Tyre/Tire wear'n'tear

[Cal Price]

I just replaced the tyres on my 14 month old bandit 650 after just short of 8000 miles. Much to my surprise the front one was on the wear marks and the back a little better. Normally by rough rule of thumb i would expect the front tyre to last twice as long as the rear. Could this be my riding style? the only factor that i can think of that is out of the ordinary is that I have done a nearly couple of thousand miles in mountain areas, last summer in the Pyrenees and more recently in the Alsace region, quite a lot of weight etc braking on the downhill sections, ( and occasional crap surfaces) could that account for it or did I just get a crap tyre? i have replaced both with BT021, if i recall correctly the bandit came new with BT020 on the rear and BT010 or 201 (well something with a "one" in it) on the front. Oh and I use that "Goop" / "Slime" stuff in the tyre but i have never heard of that affecting the life of the tyre. I check on the preasure regularly.
One of the guys on the UK Bandit Forum says he only got 2000 miles from his first set which is pretty awful.
Whats going on???

[gsJack]

Cal, the only supersport type tire I ever put on the two GS500s in over 140k GS miles was a BT010 and it was looking pretty crappy after 2-3k miles.  I parked that 97 GS then and after son JP put it back in service a year or so later he replaced it with only 5500 total miles on it.

I ran Z4 fronts with Z2 rears and a pair of AV 45/46 radials on the GSs and the front wore out or got badly out of shape first in each case and I did take those tires to the mountains for much abuse.  Turned the front rotor blue twice and actually faded out the front brake once, but you have twin front discs to my single so you can abuse your front even further in downhill mountain twisties if you choose.   

Many use supersport fronts with sport touring rears to even out the radial tire wear while getting the better grip and response of the supersport on the front.  A VFR rider I know from another forum currently favors a Pilot Power front with the BT021 rear and he rides hard and fast and only gets around 5k from the better tires.

Even with the bias tires I never got 2 to 1 wear on fronts vs rears like many claim, more like 50% more front wear at best for me.  Guess I'm just a habitual front tire abuser.   

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/GS500tirelog.jpg

[Cal Price]

Mmmm seems like I to am a front abuser, must be something to do with the more mature rider! Good club to be in - cheers jack.