Today when I got back from my ride, I noticed that there is a patch of rubber missing on the sidewall of my nearly new PR3, exposing the threads underneath. The threads are completely untouched…it just looks like the thin rubber covering in that spot was rubbed away by something…possibly from bouncing around when I moved a few months back.
From the looks of it, the rubber in this area is really thin and isn’t structural at all. I can’t imagine it gives much protection to the underlayment either, except for some UV shielding perhaps. Is this a potential blow-out waiting to happen? Could I recoat the area with something (like liquid electrical tape) to reseal it? …or do I now just have a new trainer tire?
By your description it looks like the area does not touch the ground and is not structural, so you could try filling it with silicone and see if it stays put. I have done that in a tire on my road bike almost a year ago, and so far no problems.
Welcome to the world of PR3’s. I’ve had two sets and both were horrible. One tire split right on the tread, another 2 split on the sidewalls, and I replaced the other before I ended up being stranded by its unreliability. I hated them. Hope you have better luck than I did.
PR3s are great, until you hit something with them. They seem to disintegrate when they hit a pot-hole, curb, etc. Sounds like it is done.
If you aren’t planning on racing with them, I would plan on getting something like the Specialized Armadillo Elite tire. Its not quite as beefy as the other version of the tire, but it is still really robust in terms of puncture resistance. Rolling resistance is going to be greater than PR3, but it is not nearly as bad as the standard Armadillo. http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=47681&eid=355
The sidewall rubber is for cosmetics and minor sidewall cut protection (sidewall cuts are very rare). My old Specialized tires just had fabric sidewalls, and would fray all over the place (again just a cosmetic issue, not a durability one). In short, the tire is fine for use.