Cleave

A few late comments. I only use tubulars for racing, except for mid-week training races where I use my training clinchers (PowerTap) on my training road bike. I stopped using tubulars for training in the late 1980s when better clincher tires and rims came to the market. Until then, I'd repair tubulars during lunch at work. These days, I give away my punctured tubulars. Last year I gave away several tires.

Since my race wheels are carbon tubular, I have a set (actually two sets) of carbon clinchers so that I don't have to worry about changing brake pads when I train on my race bike and so that I have a set of carbon wheels for spares at races.

Personally, I haven't noticed much difference in pad wear between different brands of brake pads. The pads that last the longest have been Zipp pads. Cork-based pads wear very quickly in my experience. Haven't noticed much performance difference between the different brands. Maybe I don't brake enough.

I have used TUFO tape on and off over the past 5 years. I had stopped using it but I will admit that after all of the flat tires that I had last year, I am using TUFO tape right now on my race wheels. I will go back to glue for the next set of tires as I am nervous about the tape -- even though I've never rolled a tire when I've used it.

Speaking of rolled tires, I've only rolled a tire on two occasions; once training back in the 1970s (I didn't crash) and once in a race in the early 1980s (I crashed while on a solo break). After the second incident I figured out how to glue tires properly.