79pmooney

I rode sewups for decades starting in the early '70s. Absolutely loved them. On all my bikes. Widths in general were not listed but none (except Clement Del Mondos) not wide. Pressures 100 to 115. Married and switched to clinchers. (Easier than justifying the cost and time of sewups. Choosing my battles ...) Started at 23s. 25s seemed better. 28s worked better in the wet and winter. 32s found their way to new to me bikes that liked gravel.

I began to think that my love of skinny sewups was the fond memories of a fictional youth. Just like my love for the 75 degree head angle, super short chainstay criterium bike I took down some of Vermont's fastest decents. Two summers ago I picked up an early '80s Japanese race bike. Same size and nearly the same geometry of that old race bike. And just as tight. Big tires cannot even be put on. Takes to hands to spin the wheels on the stand with "normal" rubber. 25c max in front, 24c max in back.

Now it happened I picked up that bike the same time I had decided to go back to sewups. The return to sewups was for peace of mind and had nothing to do with performance or bike limitations. A dozen years ago I blew an old clincher and it came off the rim. That crash was one of my top five and afterwards I could not enjoy a fast decent, always thinking "I'm going 45. That crash was at 25. What if the tire blows?" (I blew a sewup at least once at that speed in my racing days. Braked to a stop using both brakes, peeled the tire off, put the spare on and rode on. Yes, I remember the heartrate jump when the tire blew. But the rest was such a non-event that I cannot remember where it happened, which wheel it was or even if it happened once or on two occasions. That clincher blowout will be imprinted in my brain for as long as I live.

So, early on I built up sewup wheels for this old race bike. Took me a while to find 23c tubulars so the bike didn't get ridden much. But last summer I knew I was riding it for Cycle Oregon's last ever week long ride and landed a 23c Vittoria Corsa for that rear tire. I started the ride a little nervous about doing descents in the coast range with rubber that skinny. Well Day 2 was it. And I encountered a stretch of about 20 feet of missing pavement; basically an extended pothole bottom, at real speed. I just tightened my grip on the drops but not my forearms and lifted maybe a 1/4" out of the saddle and let the bike do its thing underneath me. Like I was a 25 yo racer. Bike blasted along, hit the 2" far "pothole lip", bounced up onto the pavement and rolled on like that was nothing. And me? "This bike? Yeah!!" Never worried about pavement after that.

Oh, I weigh 150 pounds. Rode the front 25c Corsa at 95 psi, the rear 23c at 110. Very nice GP4 rims I didn't want to hit and dent. So, yes, enough pressure that this was not a modern ride of big, low pressure (comfortable) tires. But the ride was - sublime. Two of the days were just pure bliss on the bike. One with headwind in farm country, dead flat. Morale killer except the bike felt so wonderful.

The are several things that will keep me from putting tires this skinny on my other bikes. Biggest - I have to pay more attention. Skinny tires drop into cracks wide tires roll over. Stones on the pavement are a bigger issue. So is dirt, debris and leaves. At 70 yo, bigger and softer often feels like what I want. (But squishy drives me nuts. And I need decent firmness in the front tire when I come out of the saddle and pull myself forward over those 150mm stems.) My Mooney is a Cadillac set up fix gear with 28c Corsas. Might even see 30s one day. The TiCycle is also running 28s. Jessica, the fix gear of my avatar, feels perfect on 25s. She was built to handle 25 max in back running the wheel all the way forward with a 24 tooth cog. With quality sewups, she doesn't need a mm more. (She is a race bike, fictional yes but still ... Not paying attentions while riding her is never going to end up well.)

Edit: And yes, light wheels are fun! Really light wheels are more fun. Tubular wheels are the way to light wheels on a low budget. With low tech aluminum rims that work with rim brakes in the wet and handle the heat of braking on descents well.