About the Continental Grand Prix TT,

in the past month I've had
a flat tire situation twice where
"I went to go out and it was completely flat (punctured)"
In both cases it was a slow puncture from something poking through from the outside,
not a problem with the rim tape or anything like that.

As you can see in the image above,
there are still molding seams remaining
(and in the center, not on the sidewalls) like you'd find on a plastic model sprue


↑yet there are places that end up like this
(this is also where the first flat occurred).

Though not quite as extreme as a Supersonic,
using such a thin tire for regular riding is
frankly a mistake to begin with.


There's a wear indicator on the tread,
but long before reaching it,
the casing knobs become exposed on this tire (→here).


The sidewall tread is file-marked rather than wood-grain patterned,
the label with the tire model name appears on both sides,
and the label on the opposite side says Continental on both sides
(depending on the model, one side says Continental and
the other says Handmade in Germany,
and in that case I position the Continental side on the right).
In other words, this tire has no
distinguishable left or right orientation based on tread or labels.


Yet mysteriously, there's a rotation direction specification.
The reason is probably the same as with Pirelli (→here).
Now that I've noticed this specification exists,
from now on I'll need to pay careful attention to the sidewalls when mounting this tire.
What a pain.