Those tires look amazing compared to the wear mine are showing. I can still see my wear indicators though. I think you're safe for another 1,000 miles or so.

They're in great shape outside of those patches. I was surprised to see that fraying actually.

It looks like you just ticked the sidewall with a sharp pebble. There doesn't appear to be enough damage to cause a problem.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

They are fine as racing tires! They are practically brand new, and there is no significant damage to the sidewall.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

You could always add some super glue

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Haha, I know I'm being paranoid. Plan was to race on them for sure as the tread was still great. One little spot would have been nothing. But I probably understated it in the first post. There's two or three on each side of both tires. Other than that, here's are fairly new looking. If they were 2500+ miles, I'd have just ordered new without thinking twice. But I'd like to keep riding these and save 70 bucks. Just wanted to make sure as I've never noticed it on other tires. Fairly sure I never rubbed the sidewalls on anything either.

I'll probably throw the one I took off back on after the race and save the good tire for next season.

Fahgeddaboutit.

I just had a front tire that looked like that with about 700 miles on it blow it. Just got done climbing and it blew right at the top. Sidewall let loose. They were continental 4000s2 also. Defective batch maybe? Be careful IMO.

Misaligned brake pad more like it.

No misaligned brake was not the problem. It looked exactly like the picture above. Frayed and blew out.

..and perhaps a boot ?? (I think that is what the plastic reinforcement is called... a gel wrapper etc )

What does the inside look like?

The little nick posted above is a nothing.
That will not and cannot cause a blowout.

If you look at how a GP4000s is constructed you will soon see that there is no join and multiple layers at differing angles so there is simply no way for a manufacturing fault to occur there.

If yours blew out it either rubbed the brake pad or was cut by debris.
About the only manufacturing failure that type of tyre could suffer is tread delamination or complete tyre deconstruction due to a fault in the process of vulcanization.

What do you mean by 'blew out'? The tire split in half? Or the tire blew off the rim?

I had the same thing happen (albeit, back in the 90's). I had three different Continental GP's develop the same fraying, and all three blew out while riding. I think I've bought one Conti since. I second the suggestion to put a barrier in that spot (I like a strip of an old race number), just in case.

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John Hartpence, Athlete & Coach
tripence@gmail.com, @coachpence

I knew I'd get mixed responses, haha.

I have some tire patches I use when I get a small cut on a newer tire. I'll just place some on the inside of the tire and super glue the outside to reduce additional fraying. Will get a new tire on the rim a few weeks before the race.