Wondering if it’s time to replace my tires…there are some micro cracks/tears in the rubber but the wear indicator is still visible. Edit: These are S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2Bliss Ready tires
How do they feel? Just looking at the wear indicator it seems like they have some life left in them.
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I found hard braking a little sketchy more recently but more concerned about long rides/puncture resistance.
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Unless you are getting lots of frequent punctures keep using them. The wear indicator certainly doesn’t show they are end of life.
I routinely go past the wear indicators. 
Are you set up tubeless? I can see no reason to replace these yet.
Is that something to be proud of? In my mind that is penny wise, pound foolish. 
I’d say borderline, because it looks as if your tires are no longer round, but flat at the top. In my experience, this results in lower grip in corners, especially when you are transitioning. (Just think about it visually, the transition becomes sharp and your grip levels might be inconsistent.)
If I were you, I’d replace them.
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@edwinandrew Unless you are constantly p’turing due to tyre (tire for the non UK folk) wear on another part of the tread or damage elsewhere not pictured going by the wear indicator (still visible) there’s still plenty of life in that tyre (not the run out of energy type tire 
).
Rather than put me down, you could explain why you think the tire wear indicator is a super critical piece of information.
How do you think people dealt with this issue before tire wear indicators?
I use GP5000s and I didn’t even realize that they added wear indicators to grand prix tires. They didn’t have them before. They also didn’t have direction indicators and they added those after the fact.
Personally I look at the wear indicator as a suggestion not any indication that your tire is about to implode because it won’t. The soft rubber tread is not holding everything together.
Yeah, I paid the price for that this weekend…I knew my rear gravel tire was getting pretty worn, but wasn’t certain the Pathfinders I had waiting to be installed were going to be a good tire for my race last weekend (Karst Crusher), so I kept my old Goodyears on (a great, all around gravel tire).
3 miles into the race I could feel it getting soft and by mile 5, I was out of the race.
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I didn’t put you down, I just don’t think it was good advice and something others should not emulate — which is exactly what I wrote.
With their eyes. I haven’t needed tire wear indicators to know when it was time to retire a tire.
A squared off tire is a dead give away for a tire that’s been run too long. I have seen people run them until white threads showed up. The thing is that it isn’t just (lack of) rubber, it is that the compound degrades and also that alone gives you worse grip over time. And that’s something that isn’t necessarily visible.
Last time I had that happen to me was on a loaner. The tires were already quite bad, and since it was a loaner, I did not have my saddle bag with me. I got a flat on a badly surfaced road. I had to walk back home. 18 km. In road shoes.
I disagree, at least from a “leaving me stranded” standpoint. I rode an S-Armadillo 25mm until it was squared off so sharply that it resembled a drag-race Moto tire. Never got stranded. Didn’t corner well, but I was in Iowa and "corners only happened every 6-20 miles.
Just because you didn’t get stranded or suffer flats doesn’t mean that the tire was long past its expiration date.
As you note, it didn’t corner well and the rolling resistance (already pretty bad w/ Armadillos) was likely horrific. Why keep riding bad rubber like that?
Reliability. And cheapness.
Well new tires would be just as (actually more) reliable…so I think you just kinda proved @OreoCookie’s point! 
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If you read my first post, I specifically talk about unreliable/unpredictable traction when cornering, especially in the transition period. Also braking is compromised. So I don’t think we disagree on anything, but the conclusion: I don’t think these are risks worth taking.
Plus, you lose puncture protection when you have less material and the rubber has likely become harder and more brittle. (Often you literally get micro tears on the surface.)
Regarding cheapness, I’d invoke once more the saying “Penny wise, pound foolish.” I’d much rather save money on cassettes, groupsets and the like (buy the 105 cassette instead of the Ultegra of even DuraAce cassette) than on something that is essential for safety.
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Which is basically what I said. I go past the gp5000 wear indicators because they are too conservative. With the gp5000, you will be leaving many miles on the table.
No, I think we are saying something very different: I do not think what you are doing is a good idea and has negative safety implications.
Just because I usually don’t and don’t need to use tire wear indicators doesn’t mean I ignore them. If I noticed that I went past the tire wear indicator, I’d immediately replace a tire. It is just that so far I haven’t let it come that far and have replaced tires before tire wear indicators were completely worn down.