Mouton,

When you said your tire failed somewhere inside on the tire, you were talking about the puncture, right? Well, when you inflate a tubular, then submerge it and look for air bubbles, the air can travel under the tubular casing from the puncture hole before it emerges from the tubular. This can happen if the tube has shifted just slightly inside the tire so that air coming out of the puncture in the tube doesn't find the puncture hole in the tread. Then it'll usually come out through the stitching, but it can do so a few inches away. It can be slightly maddening at times. A few tricks: First, don't put too much air in -- it'll just force the tube hard against the casing and cause air to go all over the place. Second, locate every possible cut on the tread and use a toothpick on an uninflated tire to see which ones go through or not (that sometimes will be your best method to find the true hole). Third, have some soapy water and brush it on the tread of the tire -- don't bend and kink the tire by trying to submerge it in your sink, because this will just redirect where the air bubbles flow. And finally, sacrifice a chicken. Sometimes you need all the help you can get.

All that being said, while most holes do happen in the tread, tubulars are getting awfully good these days. Giro's are pretty close to the bottom of the scale, unfortunately, but tubulars today are a lot better than they were 20 years ago, believe me. They are a lot more puncture resistant, and by and large are a lot more resistant to punctures than clinchers are, but you can still get a snakebite (just like on clinchers). Knocking loudly on wood, that's the only puncture I've had this winter. And a snakebite will of course be on the inside. If you bottom the tire out, you're bottoming it out, regardless of whether it's a tubular or clincher. This is not as likely as a hole on the tread that is trying to hide itself, but worth considering.

All told, I'd suggest you consider a tubular like a Continental Sprinter. It's very durable, lasts a long time, withstands skids and other abuse, and if you shop the internet you can find them for as low as $33 apiece (just as one recommendation, check out a seller called Euromike on eBay for the best prices I've seen, and he's a very reliable guy). At that price they are hard to beat. If you can handle the cost of keeping a couple extra around, you can then send them to www.tirealert.com when they do puncture, and those folks completely replace the inner tube and send them back to you for a pretty nominal amount. I happen to like to fix tubulars while I'm sitting watching a late nite movie, and I've done it for years so I'm at ease doing it, but then, lots of people do very odd things in front of a late nite movie.

Tubulars are good. They just have some special tricks you learn over time. It's a more sophisticated kind of tire, so you have to learn to outwit them. But they're totally worth the effort. It does help to have a nice little repair kit: Get some thin sailmakers' needles from West Marine (online, or one of their local stores) and a small pair of pliers to push them through with; they're much better than the ones in the tubular repair kits. Get a small seam ripper from a sewing store -- it opens up a tire in seconds with no risk of extra damage. Be sure and use the small feathered Rema patches (same as the good ones for clinchers) -- they make it a lot easier to reassemble your tubular -- and dust everything with talcum before you restitch to help slide the tire back inside easily. Don't sand the tube like the repair kits say -- just use a little naphtha or acetone to clean off the inner tube. And get some carpetlayers' latex adhesive to glue the base tape back on with -- it's cheap and is the same stuff that was used to glue the base tape on originally. A little box with all your repair stuff in one place makes life so much easier.

You're on the right track. Most of these folks with wiseass comments about tubulars have never had the nerve to use them. You're willing to learn something new, and that's a big plus. After a few flats, this will be old hat.