Originally Posted by
spclark
Good thread this'n.
I've been (admittedly intermittent) riding my 1972 Motobecane Grande Record since I bought it on Easter Sunday in Chicago, 1972. Was 'new' to road bikes then, so unaware it should have been equipped with clincher rims & tires rather than the Mavic tubulars I'm still riding on... at least once the outdoor biking season begins where I live.
Tires have changed (several times!) since then but the rims are still true, show little brake surface wear.
Did recently build a clincher rear for this bike that I mounted a trainer tire onto so I have the confidence now to take on a pair of tubulars. I'd heard street tires don't play well with 'in-contact' trainers, hence the urge to make the change.
I've been pondering building a new pair of wheels around more 'modern' hubs & new tubular rims so the info being put up here is of great interest to me.
Seems tubular rims are kinda few & far between?
And can get really pricey as well? I'm a recreational rider, unwilling to pay more for a rim than the entire bike's worth at this point. By this rule US $150 is about all I want to spend per rim.
I also built a pair of clincher rims - I didn't trust myself to change a flat on the tubulars. Then I discovered Orange Seal
and the clincher rims are on top of a cupboard.
If you look at vintage tubular rims they're actually fairly common (UK anyway) and quite a few are relatively cheap.
Example:
.
More usually a pair of Mavic Monthlery Pro is around £50 on Ebay.
And Ebay has approx 335 matches for "tubular rim" in the UK.
You could pick up some half decent Normandy hubs for £30 each.
If you're after some new rims I'm not really the person to ask, but Mavic Reflex were mentioned and they're current for around $40 each.
There are probably many more anodized rims since that seems to be the modern fashion.