Originally Posted by
irclean
My experience was not the same... my sidewall did not fail. My tire came off the rim, allowing the tube to escape and the resulting pressure differential caused it to fail. I don't know if the problem was with the tire or the rim itself; when I installed the tires I noticed the sidewalls were very stiff, but it seemed to seat in the rim just fine. I also don't know the rim width, but the OE tires were 38s while the Michelins are 35s. BTW the Pilot City is different than the City in that it has a "Protek" reinforced sidewall as well as 5 mm under the tread vs. the City's non-reinforced sidewall and 1 mm under the tread. It's designed to be more resistant to sidewall tears and pinch flats.
I have been riding with these tires at max pressure since their purchase and they have an estimated 2000 km on them. Since I top up the pressure on a weekly or bi-weekly basis one would assume this problem would have presented itself earlier if these tires were prone to failure. I'm quite confident that the problem lies with the rims and not the tires. In any case I have lowered the front tire to ~77 psi but am keeping the rear at max as per Jan Heine's tire drop formula (thanks again for the link, tsl).
I listed the reason why I believe my sidewall failed, add the fact that I have about 260 lbs, full laden weight of me, my bike and gear is about 320 to 330 lbs, and you get the picture. Also, the tires are of the same basic construction, in the same size, a difference in the protection level might have contributed to your tire not ending up being cut, as I noted before, along with other factors.
How can you be confident that the problem lies with the rim, and not the tire? If every other tire worked fine on that rim of yours, and only this one blew off, please explain me how did you get to the conclusion that the rim is defective? I had that blow off problem only with this Michelin tire, not with any other of more then a few dozen tires I used on that same rim - to me, that points in the direction of the tire as being responsible for the fault, not the rim. I will probably be exchanging them for some cheap CST tires that I used to run before - minus the puncture protection and a bit less grip, but no thinking about will it ever blow off again on it's own accord.