SoreFeet

As much as I wanted to buy into the retro lore of tubular tires, I have had enough. My first ride out on freshly glued tires I had a popped tube. The valve was centered well.

Just bad luck..The next day out I had both tires lose grip on a slow turn in a little bit of road gravel.

Now I've had enough. I understand that the old silk tires were great but they aren't around for a good price anymore. Modern tubular tires cost way too much for being made in Thailand. I'm talking about the legendary vittoria evo...Dugast silks are way out of my budget.

It seems the only way to ride a tire with a respectable diameter is to go clinchers. So with 500 grams weight...I will enjoy the benefits of using a cassette hub and 28MM tires under 100$

But don't despair my old schwinn road frame is going to get the rattle can treatment and the lightest meanest grocery getter single speed in town, thanks in part to the tubular rims.

WNG

I've read that tubeless tires/rims are the closest to the supple ride of tubulars. But it's far from perfected.
What does one do about types of flats?
The lack of tubes will be a good thing. And I look forward to trying once it's mainstream. I couldn't live with the hassles of tubulars back in the late 70s/early 80s...and still wouldn't think of running them.
But that's me.

John E

I used tubulars during most of the 1970s, when I lived in Los Angeles. For commuting and general transportation I had a 1960 Capo with clinchers and a theft-resistant Rustoleum paint job. I built a high-end tubular wheelset (Campagnolo low-flange hubs, DT butted spokes, Fiamme yellow label rims) for my Nishiki, but I also kept and often used its original clincher wheelset. I was able to put up with tubulars because I used them only for weekend recreational rides. When I moved to San Diego County in 1981 and discovered goathead thorns, I swore off tubulars, partly because high-end clinchers had gotten so good.

caterham

sorry to hear,SF.
i'm going the other way,myself. after 2 +decades of trouble free sew-up use, I'd convinced myself that modern clincher designs had nearly bridged the gap in performance and handling.
That , combined with the high price of good quality tubulars had me equipping all my modern bikes with clincher rims.

At first I was pretty satisfied that the best clinchers rode about as well as an above average 'burlap special' sew-up (ie-good enuf ) but as a big bonus, had the advantage of actually being round.

Even so,I soon discovered that 8 times out of ten, I'd be riding and prefering to ride any of my sew-up equipped bikes (even the beaters) over any of my latest/greatest flashiest and most expensive clincher shod bikes, even for commuting and running errrands around town.

I've not had a single flat with the tubulars over the past 5 years either, compared to 4 flats with the clinchers over the same time period and with fewer miles on them.

At least in my instance, the sew-ups have been more cost effective per mile, less trouble and most importantly,more fun to ride.

best,
k

Bogester 

WoW! Four flats in 5 years. I once had 4 flats in one day! Only had 5 last year...a very good year.

gridplan

You didn't need pricey Vittorias or Dugasts. Tufos work like a champ for many of us.

jeffieh

Almost all my bikes have tubular wheels. Wouldn't have it any other way. I prefer the ride, 2nd hand quality wheelsets go for a song, the tyres are cheap (at least they are in Decathlon, France) and they never seem to puncture for me. Hey, maybe us tubular riders are just better at looking where we're going

Cheers - Jeff

g-funk

the secret to clinchers is that you have to age them in your wine cellar for a few years before you use them. I saw some documentary about Lance and there was a segment about some Dutch dude who aged clinchers and sold them for a ton of money and pro's were lining up to spend their own money for them. I think it took about 3 years for a clincher to reach chateau neuf de pape status.

lotek 

aged clinchers just get old.

aged Tubulars achieve that je ne sais quoi quality, gently off gassing
and becoming supple and effervescent in ride quality, like a good bottle
of Louis Roederer Cristal 1988.

I like caterham haven't flatted in 3 or 4 years,
and that was only due to my own stupidity
(of course we don't have goat head thorns here).

Marty

MajorA

"Gently off gassing" ... so THAT's what my tubulars do ....

jfmckenna

My '83 Guerciotti will only ever ride tubulars, she told me so. But my modern race bike rides on Michelin Pro Race tires. Once I discovered those there is no going back. But I never have a problem with tubular tires. They seem pretty easy to deal with if you ask me. And if your rolling tires in a corner you simply didn't glue them up properly. It's not rocket science nor do you have to climb the high mountain to hear the secrets from the guru

It's just like following a recipe to bake a soufflé.

I find tubulars in the price range of 20-30 bucks on the Internet in various places. They aren't as good as the expensive ones but cheap ones are out there for sure.

I was lucky enough to buy some NOS Vittorias for 10 bucks a pop so I have some nice aged ones waiting to be mounted

GeraldChan

I have ridden on sew-ups since 1973.
In the mid-80's I experimented with the new clinchers by having Wheelsmith of Palo Alto build me a wheelset on classic Campy NR hubs 32h 3X. They rode OK but were much harsher riding and didn't give me that "tubular ride" which, I feel, is a perfect match for the characteristics of a steel frame.
I had set aside my tubular wheels for my Nishiki Pro FG conversion for about a decade as the hubs needed rebuilding. My LBS finally dug up the parts needed to rebuild my old hubs, which I am sentimental about as I bought them new in the box from saving lunch money back in high school. Just last week I glued on some NOS Vittorias Corsa Seta's CX and was overwhelmed by how much "faster" they felt than the clincher equipped wheels sporting the same hubs.

Now, all 3 of my steel bikes have both kinds of wheels. I like the ease of flat repair of the clinchers but I get said flats much more frequently on them. I use the clincher tires on damp or wet roads or when my glue is hardening on my "good wheels".
Like many on this thread I get very few flats on my sew-ups (fewer than 1/yr); I generally wear out the rubber before flatting.

Most of all with tirealert around I no longer bother with repairing them myself. Glueing tires is not so difficult once mastered and you don't do it all that often.

Since I ride for fun, my tires of choice are tubulars b/c they feel so much better.
My favorite modern tires are the Veloflex Criteriums; in a tan sidewall of course.

piwonka

all my wheelsets are tubular right now, but i'm waiting on some hubs so i can build a clincher wheelset to ride in the rain/damp weather.

tubular rims can be picked up so cheap, plus the tires feel better than clinchers to me.

i just got some vittoria evo tri tires and man...i can't believe the supple feel of the basetape on those tires. i bet they are gonna feel so nice. they are going on a bike i don't really ride all the time so i think they will last. they do a puncture protection belt in them.

GeraldChan

I still can't understand how the same folks who go to such great effort to get their bikes to that perfect restoration or "period correctness" can use clincher tires on their bikes when the bike originally came with sew-ups.

I personally don't care if a bike is "correct". I build it the way I like it; but I really prefer tubulars.

Gerry

Road Fan

sorefeet, didn't you start a thread a few days back with about the same initial information?

If I'm not off base, what exactly are you looking for that you didn't get?

Road Fan

RK1963

Those were too balars.

Road Fan

Mrs Road Fan doesn't like it when I do that.

Road Fan

Road Fan

+1!

Kommisar89

Yeah, I thought that too until they kept flatting on me about every third ride or so. After that a nice set of "period correct" clincher rims did the trick and I haven't had any issues with flats since. Now granted there could be some reason besides just extremely bad luck why they kept going flat. Some others have related similar expereinces with the cheapie Vittorias but others have said they have had no problems. Or maybe the skinny 22mm tires were just not robust enough for my 205-lb frame. Or maybe...oh hell, who knows? I just got tired of it. And my clinchers (Rigida AL1622s laced to Campagnolo high-flanged Nuovo Tipo hubs) look quite at home on the bike.

CV-6 

How does one flat in over 20 years on tubies grab you? And that was probably due to a cheap tubie.

Road Fan

As one of the guys who doesn't get many flats, I'm a bit flummoxed too. As a kid in Chicago I got flats maybe once every 2 months, and when I got a sewup bike, just learned to fix my tire. We had a lot of glass on the streets and on park MUPs. Now in Ann Arbor and on the nice roads around us I really don't see much glass. I had as many flats on clinchers (the 27X1 1/4 gumwall kind with "High Pressure" printed on the side) back in the day.

I think tubulars are best where there is not much glass, and clinchers for dirtier roads. It is easier to be prepared for multiple flats in a day's ride with clinchers. In addition within clinchers there are more options to select a more resistant tire. But I have not found clincher wheels to be stronger or longer lasting in any way. I rarely notice extra inertia with my clincher wheels now, and some tires are really nice. But going back to my sew-up wheels I really like them better.

But to each his own. You have to find the bike setup that is best for your conditions, maintainance plans, and riding needs.

Road Fan