Originally Posted by
Trakhak
I had a Pirelli Gran Premio tubular tire whose stitching failed---a section of the tire blew apart and immediately jammed in the brake. Luckily for me, I was walking the bike at the time. Had I been on a mountain descent---!!!
That was in 1967, though, years before you started racing, and was a one-off, just like your clincher that came off the rim. It didn't put me off riding tubulars forever.
About 15 years ago, I hit a raised metal expansion joint on a bridge at stupid speed and flatted both clinchers. I tried to ride on the flat tires to get to the nearest phone, half a mile away, but the rear tire rolled off the rim after 100 yards or so. No big deal.
The likelihood that I would eventually split another tubular tire was approximately zero. Never happened again, in the subsequent 20-plus years of racing and training before I moved on from tubulars. I could have sworn off tubulars forever, of course, but I knew that many thousands of racers had been riding tubular tires for decades, so I went with the percentages.
Many millions---if not billions---of riders have used clincher tires to ride many, many billions of miles---far more than the total miles ridden on tubulars. The number of riders who have rolled clinchers off a rim at speed with catastrophic results must be vanishingly small.
How did I arrive at that conclusion? Given the propensity of Bike Forums posters to repeat themselves ad infinitum whenever a topic is broached that reminds them of their favorite bugbear, if there are any here who have had it happen---besides you, I mean---we'd hear no end of it.
You could argue that some or most of those who rolled their clinchers off the rim were killed and thus were unable to complain. Of course, the same argument could be made regarding catastrophic failures of tubulars.
Yes, it's theoretically possible that you could lose another clincher. My guess, based on my experience, is that a catastrophic failure of one of your tubulars is just as likely. Once-in-a-lifetime occurrences are just that.
By the way, aren't you the guy who had a steel fork fail and consequently decided never to trust a carbon fork? Apologies if I'm remembering that incorrectly.
Aluminum fork. A crack that started in a place that could nor be seen without destructive testing. I've had 2 steel forks fail. One gave me adequate warning (though some luck was also involved) and the other was simply no big deal. I rode the broken fork home.
I may be unique or simply a coward but bad crashes from equipment failure leave me unable to enjoy similar equipment later without the constant "what if ..." running through my mind. Forks. That second failure; caused by a combination of Columbus SL blades, a crown without scallops and nickle plating without a post-plating heat treat, not a mistake I will ever make again. Still, I feel much more secure on a painted 531 fork with a deeply scalloped crown. And CF where an unseen crack could be, either from quality issues at manufacture or an event later in its life - well, after losing 10 years of my life and most of my profession from that crack in the aluminum fork - no thanks.
Another aspect is that I am getting older. I break bones more easily. (And my many hours on a bike are certainly a major factor in the bone density loss I am reminded by every X-ray technician.) Also the consequences of a major life-changing crash I know way too well. I do not want to live through the next. My inquiries here are to best inform myself of options going forward should the tubulars that have served me so well disappear. What I have gathered so far is that the very skinny tired early 80s race bike I love probably is not a candidate for tubeless and peace of mind. Shame. It is the best downhill bike I have ever ridden.