Road Cycling - Sew-up or clincher?

Which do you prefer?

I have clinchers (on ancient Campy Omicrom rims) for
use on the rollers.
On the road its sewups, its amazing how much of
a difference good sewups makes.

Marty

I'm with you. After riding both, I am always going to be on sew-ups when you see me. The feel could almost make up for the rigidity of an aluminum frame. I am more of a leisure, distance rider and aluminum is not for me.

I voted clinchers. First of all thats I've ever used so I don't know anything about sew ups as far as how they perform compared to clinchers. And I don't think I could find a sew-up in a 20" and 26" size for my 'bent.

I'm voting for clinchers only because I find them easier to maintain. I found sew-ups to be too much trouble and went to clinchers a looong time ago. I hated unsewing, patching, and re-sewing tubulars. Besides, I dislike riding on patched tubes, anyway. That means the entire tire needs to be unsewed, the tube pulled out and replaced, and the tire totally re-sewed. And that doesn't even get to the messy part of gluing the darn thing back on again. :(

Clinchers are on my Fondriest & Mavic Open Pro rims for general training and because of our cruddy roads. However, sewups are my tire of choice when racing is at hand.

:P A puriest in competition will always choose sewups; Much like a real golfer will choose forged blades over cavity back cast irons and a real scotch drinker with only sip single malt verses blends and I could go on and on but I won't... :o

:beer:

Neither! TUFO BABY, TUFO!

Well, I think Tufo qualifies as a "sew-up", even though nothing is actually sewn on them.....

Support van behind you when you ride?....Tubulars.

No?....then clinchers.

Unless the tubulars come with a complimentary pro mechanic to deal with the gluing, and a domestique to carry the spare tire(s) for me, I'll stick with clinchers. And that's after owning a $1000+ set of Zipp 440's.

Zipp 404 clinchers with TUFOs. No tape, no glue, no pinch flats. They last for a season and require no rim tape, no maintainence and are as supple as your girlfriend's left breast. I've ridden them through mud, hardpack, sandy and pavement from 30-70psi and never had a flat with them. Short of tearing them on sharp rocks, they are indestructible with a ride to rival genuine sewups.

Michelin Pro Race clinchers.

Good enough for seven stage wins in the TdF. Ridden exclusively by five teams, including the recent World Champion Oscar Friere of Mapei, (also one of the five teams). The Axial Pro won Paris roubaix.

Robbie McEwen won the green jersey sprinting on them. Lotto is another of the five teams.

Clincher performence is such, now that for a tire $15-20 less, even professionals can't tell the difference.

They can tell the difference. Michelin sponsors those teams is why they ride the tires.
Clinchers are very good now for sure, I agree with that. Sewups have a superior ride that clinchers cannot duplicate. It is just the nature of how they are constructed.

Originally posted by RacerX
They can tell the difference. Michelin sponsors those teams is why they ride the tires.
Clinchers are very good now for sure, I agree with that. Sewups have a superior ride that clinchers cannot duplicate. It is just the nature of how they are constructed.

My point is that ride and performance are not the same.

Ride is what your rear end feels.

Performance is winning. You can win on a tire that is less expensive and more reliable, if you race.

You are correct in that teams get paid to ride certain tires. But no team is going to sacrifice performance. And riding Michelins or Hutchinsons, or any other top clincher has been clearly demonstrated to not impact performance. There's no speed advantage. And, unless you have a team car following you on your training rides, it could be a long afternoon.

Even the pro teams that do race on sewups don't typically train on them.

yes the problem with sewn up its really very big, but if your a pro rider then its another answer, but personbally I prefer a clincher...