I have Gatorskins on all my bikes, except Panaracer Paselas on one vintage bike. I've been very happy with them usually. The front tire on my Allez, a Gator 25 has been making strange noises, the nearest I can say is a high frequency "swish ... swish ... swish" sound, speed dependent. If I ride over a painted line, like a bike lane, it goes quiet. Another bike has one of these on the rear, and I noticed several deep cuts, so I retired that tire. As I was inspecting it, if I run my finger around the circumference of the tread I feel a series of bumps, like air bubbles between the tread and inner casing. Though these tires are probably a year old (I don't track tire mileage) the tread wear holes are still plainly visible, showing estimated less than half wear. I bought three tires at the same time, and one is on the back of the Allez, and it looks, sounds and feels "normal" to touch. Years ago I had a couple of Specialized tires with tread separation, one at over 30 mph. So I'm a little concerned. Anybody else see tread "bubbles" like these? The Allez is my errand, bank, post office bike, and doesn't see a lot of miles, though I did a 44 mile club ride a couple of weeks ago with no issues. Its not something I can photograph, only hear and feel. Anybody else?

Did you purchase the Gatorskins that were folded up? I have the Gatorskins that came in a large box not folded. Love the tires.... after all I live in Florida and gators are also house pets......

From what you are saying sounds a little like there is some delimitation going on inside the tire carcass. I don't know about bicycle tires, but other tires are laid up in various diagonal layers with the carcass inside-out then they go through a heat process. Up until recently this lay up was done by hand. In the 90's I visited the Bridgestone and Dunlop plants in Japan... what a hot and smelly labor intensive job. These produced automotive tires.

Couple of things that can cause carcass separation is very high speeds or low pressure causing excessive heat buildup. I really can't see these in a bicycle tire. It may be reasonable that the tire was way over inflated at one time.

Also, riding along smoother painted stripes in the road and riding on the rough road surface will produce different sounds due to the coefficient of friction differential at the tire/road contact.

If you have the old rear tire I'd cross section it at one of the soft bubble spots and see if it is delaminated. And I'd contact Continental and ask their tech folks. Importantly, I'd be highly suspect of the tire.

I don't know the history of these. I got them from a bike club friend who only ran them a couple of weeks, 2 of them. The other was new, folding bead in factory package. He tried 25s, didn't like the ride and went back to 23s. I've been on 25s for years, and love the ride. I might cut the other one and see what's what. I tried cutting a tire once to make a holder so the Co2s wouldn't rattle. They are hard to cut, yet all it takes is a piece of glass or a thorn sometimes to cut right thru it. The front tire on my Allez has been noisy since day 1, but never noticed the blisters/bubbles until I changed the rear on the other bike, which had the new tire in package when I got it.

I've used a hack saw with good results. If you do it would be interesting to see photo's of the sections.