Originally Posted by
Abe_Froman
I've got many thousands of miles on GP4000s...I can count the number of flats I've had on my hands. Never had one that left a visible cut in the tire.
I did have ONE that caused me to pitch a tire a couple years ago. I slammed into a pothole I'm surprised didnt taco my wheel. Tire developed a slight lateral bulge in one spot...pretty sure I snapped a couple threads on the inside. Was still perfectly rideable. Took a week to even notice I had a slight wobble.
I still cant figure out how people are getting sidewall cuts on roads. Road tires are intentionally designed with thin, flexible sidewalls. Thats what makes them both faster and more comfortable.
Was in a paceline and the bike in front of me kicked up a sharp stone. The white surface under the tear is a ParkTool tire boot, which got me home. As you can see from tread wear, the tire was quite new.
A similar thing happened some time later, but with a crushed soda pop can that I should have seen and missed but didn't.
And I have no statistics except that in 60k miles of riding in the last 10 years, I've had flats on all kinds of tires (even a Gatorskin, maybe once), but only two sidewall cuts - both on GP4000s)
