Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
I don't think you understand what a tubular tire is, and why the tubular rim is superior in every respect to a clincher rim, hookless or tubeless otherwise.
The advantage in the tubular SYSTEM is not the tire but the RIM. The tubular rim has no hooks at all, the key advantage because hooks of any size or configuration add weight at the worst place on a bike, they are fragile, cause pinch flats and do not conduct braking heat well.
If given a support vehicle (pros), nobody would ever want to be on clinchers whether hookless, tubeless or tubed. The rim design is fundamentally inferior in terms of weight and strength, and it is less safe.
These never ending screeds that point out only selected and skewed one sided merits and ignoring counterpoints makes all these comments superfluous. With this approach one could endlessly defend the use of solid rubber wheels even though anyone with any reason knows the idea is ridiculous. Yes tubulars were the pinnacle of tire technology for decades however their development had stagnated. Modern tire solutions overcame the advantages of tubulars with huge gains in convenience, reliability, performance, etc. People have chosen and tubulars are just a vestige of cyclings past. The fundamental flaw with tubulars include; mounting is a pain especially for none enthusiasts, puncture resistance is average at best, on road spares are very inconvenient, at most one flat per ride otherwise you are screwed, expensive, repairing a tire is difficult. Those problems had doomed tubulars.
Lastly, for every clincher, hookless or not which has unseated and caused an incident there are just as many if not more with people which had rolled a tubular.