Now that I have had a few days to ride and examine the bike very closely, I noticed that the front tire (not really that bad) seems to have considerably more wear than the rear. My first question is:

Do the fronts wear more slowly than the rears?

On my 1000f the front tire wore about at the same rate as the rear. I never replaced a rear tire without also replacing the front. I'm wondering if the front on the f3 last longer and the previous owner replaced the rear and left the front on. Does anyone have experience in seeing greater wear on one or the other tire on your f3?

My second questions revolves around tire size. My 1000f originally had a 170/70-17. I have been running 180/55-17 without any problems.

The f3 has 170/70-17 tire on the rear. Would it be possible to run a 180 on the rear of the f3? Would there be a handling penalty to pay in terms of turn-in? Just wondering.

Thanks

 

I've put about 5k miles on my tires so far. The rear looks like it's gonna need to be replaced soon, and the front looks brand new. What I've seen generally is that unless you track it, people replace the front once for every two rears. But I guess it all depends on how you ride.
EDIT>As to the 180 question, I think I've seen people running them, but I do not know if you'd need a new rim. The actual spec size for the rear is 160/60, so 170 is kind of a hack on to start with.

 

Ok, that is very interesting. I was thinking that the rear probably was wearing quicker than the fronts. That would make sense. Thanks for the info on the size question. I think I'll stick with the 170 size. It seems to work pretty well. Very good information to have. I appreciate it.

 

theres a thread on here somewhere about tire sizes on the f3, a quick search should get you to it. But to sum it up, a 180 tire on a 5 inch rim will cause it to deform and not turn in/handle like it should, but youre perfectly fine running a 170.
As for wear, as stated above, typically the rear will wear faster than the front, just depends on how you ride.