UmneyDurak

Honestly I have no idea how people say changing tubular is faster then a clincher. I was riding in Everest Challenge using my tubular rims (not the smartest thing to do in retrospect) on second climb my front flatted! It took me and a guy from support car at least fifteen minutes to pry that damn tire off the rim! To think I was afraid of rolling it.

ElJamoquio

Half the time? If you get the right tires, you put them on without levers. I've personally never had a lever cause a flat, and I've had ~20 flats in the past two years.

merlinextraligh

The spare tubular is always an old tubular with glue still on it that's been retired. Between the residual glue on the rim, the spare tire, and the pressure, it will hold fine till you get home.

GeraldChan

As an auto enthusiast and on-track driving instructor I can tell you that ageing is no myth. With car tires you want the newest, freshest rubber you can get as it is the stickiest for good traction. As the rubber ages (even after a few months or a few heat cycles ) the grip drops off.
The same is true of bicyle tires but you don't want everthing to stick to the tubular. Ageing allows the rubber to lose some softness for more durabilty.
I first started riding sew-ups in the early 1970's and over 30 years of riding I can tell you that my tubular to clincher flat ratio is like 5 or 6 : 1 . I don't bother to age clinchers as they are not expensive enough to warrant the time.
Even Lance Armstrong is reputed to age his tires; so the practice has disciples in modern times.
Gerry

DiabloScott

No one is denying that tires do age; it is a myth that ageing makes the tubulars more supple. The rubber tread is never more grippy and supple than when the tire's new, and the casing is never stronger or more flexible than when it's new.

What exactly do you think is making your aged tires more durable?
Your contention that you don't want grippy rubber is pretty strange.

ElJamoquio

Do you have that right - 5 tubular flats to every clincher flat?

ElJamoquio

Grippy = more resistance in a straight line.

DiabloScott

Got proof? While that sounds reasonable on the surface, most rolling resistance is the result of casing and tread deformation, not friction between the tread and pavement.

San Rensho 

If you cut the old tire off, then its much faster than changing a clincher. Assuming of course, that your spare is well stretched, and to be on the safe side, has a good layer of glue on it.

DocRay

8 flats in 1200 miles?? you're doing something wrong.

GeraldChan

Sorry for the brain fart. I get about 5-6 times more flats on clincher tires. However I seldom get flats as I avoid the debris on the shoulder.
As to the statement "your casing or sidewall will never be more supple when new" is incorrect. The sidewall or casing of my Vittoria are made of cotton and as such remain supple with age and as long as the latex is re-applied periodically it remains fairly durable to abrasion.
The superiority of sew-ups in cornering has to do with the ability of the casing to conform to the road surface so ultra sticky rubber is not needed. When you buy new tires feel the softness using your fingernail. A properly aged tire will be somewhat harder. I believe that the older rubber picks up fewer debris items and so they do get driven into and through the casing. However, I have not performed any labortatory controlled studies and thus cannot cite or reference any articles. When I was new to tubulars I got many flats as I could not afford to keep the inventory needed for aging. Just my own experience. Gerry

DiabloScott

Now you're stating that you can delay the effects of aging - that's a big difference from saying aging makes it better. BTW, nothing in this first statement is unique to tubulars so you must also believe that aging cotton clinchers is a good idea (it's not).

GeraldChan

Aging tubulars is a good idea and the slight loss of stick is made up for by the lower tendency to pick up debris and thus flat.
There IS a reason why this practice has been done for the past 30+ years.
Gerry

DiabloScott

There sure is, but it has no basis in fact.

Aging does make the rubber harder, softer rubber will get more tread cuts, tread cuts are not exactly the same as flats, and harder rubber is not the reason usually cited for aging.

I note again that your logic seems to apply equally to clinchers, yet you're only endorsing aged tubulars... how come?

I'm not here to argue, I'm here to educate.

GeraldChan

Do you have any direct experience using tubulars? I don't age clinchers b/c since it is so easy to repair a flat and b/c clinchers are so much cheaper than tubulars I don't advocate aging them. I use clinchers as my bad weather or bad condition tires. I don't use cotton clinchers as their prices are approaching a good tubular and while their rolling resistance may be equiv clinchers don't corner nearly as well.
Do you have any evidence that the time honored practice of aging tubulars is without merit? I have only my own experience to show that it does reduce punctures and I have used tubulars for over 30 years.
Gerry

TMB

My spare is always glued.

DiabloScott

Well yes, I bought my first set of tubulars in 1985 (you'll recognize this era as the dawn of high performance clinchers) and I have one tubular wheelset today. I aged my tubulars (CGs for crits and Mondiales for training) because I read that it was the thing to do - I believed the lore and legend and I loved the mystique. My aged ones flatted at more or less the same rate then as my new fresh ones do now.

So if that's enough of a credential, let me ask you to really evaluate what you are contending. Forget the tubular vs clincher debate (cornering, pinch flats, rolling resistance, rim weight, etc) and stick to the subtopic we've created here about aging. It appears your only claim is that aging reduces punctures because the rubber gets harder and therefore sharp debris is less likely to get embedded in the tire; please correct me if I've misrepresented your point.

I'm sure you've seen tires where the rubber is so old that it is cracking and flaking off the casing (I've seen this in unused tires 3-4 years old). Do you believe that the tires keep getting better and better until this final condition where they are completely unusable?

Most proponents of aging do not make the "tough rubber" claim - instead they believe that somehow the casing becomes more supple with age and that the tire deforms around rocks and potholes more easily and with less damage. I could disprove that notion as well but it doesn't seem necessary.

Some Googling or Forum searching will bring up a zillion of debates like this - some quite a bit less cordial than ours; some even include my screen name. When you read through them though, note which side has the anecdotal experience posts and which side has the engineers and scientists.

R.
Scott

urodacus

the tires you get in the LBS are all pre-aged anyway from sitting around in warehouses, ships, etc. you don't think they made them yesterday just for you?

aging is a myth, just like the existence of gods. but some people love to believe in unprovable and unwarranted things, for many unrealistic reasons, or perhaps just because they were told so by someone when they were a kid.

and if lance armstrong does/did age his tires, it just proves he's just as susceptible to the same hype. i bet he didn't know when the mechanics on his team gave him fresh tires instead because they couldn't be arsed changing their methods just for him.

GeraldChan

R. Scott: So what we have is 2 riders with different results from aging tubulars. I do not see where the rubber or cotton will deteriorate much over time if it is kept in a cool, dry environment free from proximity to electric motors. The cracking of the rubber you speak of is most likely due either from UV or ozone damage. I have had 10 year old Vittoria Corsa CX/CG which look brand new with no cracking. I also store my race rubber (Track slicks for my race car) in my basement in black garbage bags with most of the air pulled out using a vacuum cleaner.
I don't see any way to resolve this difference of opinion short of conducting an experiment usuing many riders of the same weight over the same course and using the same bikes. I just don't have the time or $$ to do this, so we might have to agree to disagree.
Gerry
PS It has been easy to age my sew-up stash as I buy 4-5 at a time when someone has a blow out sale on the high-end ones (Vittorias Corsa, Veloflex Criterium or Conti Comps). My biggest cache was from a former Cat-4 racer who was getting out of racing and thus also wanted out of tubulars. Since they rarely flatted for me the unused tires aged a good few years. The latex tubes always held air the the rubber was never cracked.

DiabloScott

See this is very interesting, because what you are describing is a way of storing your tires while PREVENTING the effects of aging. What you're doing is a good idea if you're buying tubulars in bulk and want to keep them as good as new until you have need for them.

What do you really think is happening to your rubber inside a cold, dark, oxygen-depleted garbage bag? What chemical or biological process do you think occurs to make rubber stored in such conditions more cut-resistant?

I propose that your perceived results are a psychological trick your brain is playing on itself. It's possible that your perception of your flat frequency is being skewed by your beliefs about aging tires, and it's possible that you actually do get fewer flats because you believe you will get fewer flats and somehow behave differently while riding.

GeraldChan

It's my understanding that the vulcanization process continues in the rubber tread even in a cool dark, ozone depleted environment. Once the vulcanization process is complete then the tread is less cut prone. Aging:
Gerry

DiabloScott

You need a little more understanding; vulcanization takes an hour or so at the factory, and it requires heat. So you're almost there, you'll feel better when you accept the facts.

USAZorro

I have no idea what affect aging has on the stickiness of the tire, but I have noticed that my tubulars tend to have road debris stick to them more than my clinchers do. When debris clings to the tires, it gets run over more times, increasing the chances that it will get pushed into the tire and cause a puncture.

That said, I put about twice as many miles on tubulars as clinchers last year, got zero flats on tubulars, and about 12 on clinchers (not counting my bad luck with goathead thorns on vacation out west, it was only 5 flats). I find using tubulars is worth it for me.

DiabloScott

No one is in disagreement about your first point - aging makes rubber harder. Not through vulcanization, but ozone and UV degradation.

So your first paragraph is completely contradictory: the chance of flats is higher with tubulars, yet you get fewer with them. Do you ride your clinchers in the rain and your tubulars mostly in the dry? Gerald says his rain wheels are clinchers; mine are too. Wet tires are much more likely to get flats from glass shards and metallic bits because the water acts as a lubricant. So you're more likely to get flats on whatever tires you use in the wet weather; tub or clinch.

GeraldChan

Actually vulcanization is activated by both heat and chemically, sulfur, if my memory seves me. So the process can continue in the absence of heat. But it has been 32 years since my freshman chemistry class at CAL.
Gerry