my front tire has more wear on one side of the tire then the other, as I am sitting on the bike its the left side that appears to have more wear.  The front tire needs replacing anyway, is there something I should look for that may be worn out in the axle?

Air pressure is the most common problem 

Check the alignment of the forks they may be off a little. Might need some adjustment at the triple clamps.

My front tires wear more on the left side than the right due to the crown in the road.  All my front tires have for the past 380k miles I've ridden.  Some are worse than others in this regard, I got the most even front tire wear from the Lasertec and the old ME33 Lasers with the same tread pattern.  Now my current Roadrider looked like it had even wear for first 12-14k miles but now at 17k it's showing the uneven wear greater on the left but it has already lasted longer than any other front tire I've used and looks like it will go 20k.

What is average tire life of our stock tires? Mine have 12,600 on them ( I'm guessing they've never been replaced 7,000 I know of) and I don't ride hard on them really. It just seems as if my back tire slides alot in any emergent braking technique!

Mary

I didn't think about the crown of the road.  That makes perfect sense.  I will still check the forks though.  I have almost 14,000 miles on what I think is the original front tire.  I just bought the bike a few months ago, so I can't be sure, but it is the same bridgestone batlax as stock so I would guess its the original. 

My rear tire lasted about 7500 miles before I hit the wear bars.  I replaced the front and rear at the same time with Roadriders.

I've recently begun to question whether my riding style has something to do with the fact that my rear tire lasted so short.  Could a preponderance of engine braking lead to shorter tire life?

The side of the tire that is nearest the center of the road will wear more. As JS said, it's the crown - or camber - of the road. Roads are Not flat from edge to edge. They are higher in the middle and slope down to the edges. So we are Always riding on a slight slope. Hence, slightly more wear on that side compared to the other side.

Mary: If you back is locking and sliding it means you have too much rear break on as the weight is transfered to your front tire.

Michael

I just read this giant long article on that problem the other day, I think it was on this site somewhere, maybe a link from the wiki. Before that I had never thought about it. I'm still not 100% convinced. The article says it only happens in countries where we drive on the right side of the road, but I've never asked anyone from another country, maybe someone here can chime in, plus I've NEVER noticed one of my back tires doing it. I think it has more to do with the fact that the side stand is on the left side of the bike. I used to always put my bike on the sidestand, and then turn the wheel to the left to lock it, so every time I would lock it to the left the tire would grind a little bit off, and yes, I used it as a commuter daily, so that happened multiple times a day. I only noticed that right before I sold my last bike, so I've never kept track on a new set of tires long enough to know. I'm about to replace mine though so I should know eventually.

TT,

We've talked about this at work. One guy's brother reckoned it was due to the chain on the Right side of his bike that made it wear more on the right side of the tire (we ride on the left down here in OZ so right side is closest to center of the road). HA!, it still wears on that side more on bikes with chains on the left of the bike. It's the slope of the road over time. Ever so slight but there.

Now I'll throw something else into the mix... our lean preference. If we have a left lean preference - leaning left feels more natural than right - then chances are we will lean more to the left, thus corner faster, than to the right. Hence, greater wear on the left then the right.

Michael

That was the other part of the article I forgot about. Not specifically lean preference, but because we always ride on the right side of the road, your turns will be different. Right hand turns will be sharper because you're on the inside of the turn, causing you to slow more. Left hand turns will be faster since you are on the outside of the turn making it a wider turn, and you can take it much faster. That sounds like BS to me though. No matter how fast you are going, you lean a certain amount based on how much you trust your tires, so whether you're taking a really sharp turn at 40mph, or a wider turn at 65, you're still probably putting the same pressure and lean angle on your tire.