Been out on the bike round Afan today, wasn’t muddy at all as it was all frozen so very little bike cleaning required. Love days like that.

Except for the rear tyre, an XR4 with the new sidewall. It’s got a sort of knurled effect all around it and every tiny bit of grit and slop from smashing through frozen puddles has stuck to it!! It also explains why I keep getting a strange low buzzing sound off the bike on rough ground, it’s the chain slapping against it!

What purpose does the pattern serve? It’s not strong enough to act as an extra layer of protection and it certainly doesn’t add any extra grip! It just makes it hellish to clean!

And before anyone says ‘Just don’t clean it!’ the bikes live inside my flat so have to be cleaned before coming in no matter what.

Conti do textured sidewalls too, have had the same thought myself.

No doubt there will be some marketing bollox that has techy, pseudo-scientific and buzzy words to tell us why.

But I reckon in the real world its just the inside of the mold and it was cheaper to leave it like that than smooth it off.

It’s a deliberate pattern, not just a mold mark. And my old Conti tyres had it too, but to a much lesser degree.

Going to attack it in the bath tomorrow morning, otherwise it’s just more weight to pedal around next time 👿

some contis have a sort of chequered flag effect – I always assumed it implied something particular about the carcass (but definitely in a marketingy way rather than functional)

some contis have a sort of chequered flag effect

Yep, mine too.

schwalbe have the “snakeskin” diamond chequered flag thing going on.

THought it was sparse thread pattern for the sidewalls going too/from the rim?