7 years old new tires. Say what?

Here's a couple of more data points for you. My dad has a camper that had a blowout on a tire that still had 75% of its tread, but it was about 8 yrs old. I have tires on my KZ that are about 12-13 yrs old and they still look like new. The difference? The camper spends every day of its life out in the weather and sun. My KZ spends every day of its life in a cool, dry basement, away from the sun. The tire that blew on my dad's camper was starting to show signs of dry rot. My tires still look brand new. About once a month I check the pressure and condition, and they're holding up fine. If I ever start seeing signs of dry rot, they'll go straight in the trash.

Beware of those old, good looking tires.Even
in your garage they are aging.If you were to
durometer them every year, you would notice
they were getting harder.The main ingredient
in your tire is styrene butadine rubber, it is
affected by heat,sun light and all forms of hydrocarbons.Oil on the road etc.Detergents
slowly clorinate SBR, further drying out the
surface of your tire.Eventualy you will have
a hard tire with less dry grip and much less
wet grip than you originaly purchased.

All I know is that the tire I first found on one of my bikes looked like it was OEM, with almost no cracking, but HARD AS A BRICK. I am sure it was not that way when new. I replaced it with a new Bridgestone Spitfire when I got the bike roadworthy again, and the handling diference was impressive. Did the old tire just get hard during the final year? Of course not -- it got hard little by little over time. No doubt it was not safe for riding for a decade or so, at least.