So, as you might expect, I couldn’t let the aneurysm on that tire get away without a closer look: had to haul the poor thing out of the trash and dissect it. Here’s what it looked like on the bike:
The outer rubber has disintegrated and is pulling away from the Kevlar belt underneath, but it’s still holding air!
Cutting that section out of the tire and flattening it makes things look almost normal:
Peeling the rubber off the carcass reveals that the body cords have either broken or ripped loose under the belt:
There was no external damage over that part of the tire and I was wrong about a gash in the Kevlar belt. However, the ends of the belt overlap just above and to the right of my thumb, so perhaps there’s a manufacturing flaw in there somewhere.
Now it’s in the trash!
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 