Originally Posted by 63rickert

One more time what Frank Berto did. First he spoke to engineers from tire manufacturers. They all told him the design point of any bicycle tire was 15% section drop. In other words if a tire stood 100mm high with no load, and 85mm high with operating load, that tire was running just the way the designers hoped it would. Then he mounted, inflated, and measured a whole lot of tires. He loaded them with weight and measured again. He charted his results, saw it was all straight lines on a graph.

He compressed air and found that was quite predictable. It made negligible difference how stiff or flexible a tires sidewalls were. If you want your tires to operate the way the designer wanted them to operate you inflate by Berto's chart. You are most certainly allowed to inflate your tires to different pressures for different purposes. Or because you have opinions. Those who choose tubulars are very likely to be people with opinions. My own experience is that tubulars are very forgiving. They work well at high pressures and they work well at low pressures. They ride differently at different pressures. Anyone who uses them is reasonably safe experimenting with different pressures. No one on this thread has suggested a pressure that is just plain wrong.