exmechanic89

I dont think anyone said or implied that - to use the extremely overused and poor descriptor - 'rocket science' was needed to install and maintain sew-ups, rather it was pointed out that they're in many ways a PITA to use. Clinchers have a come a long way and many ride excellent these days with much less work. Make your own choice OP, but do your research before you decide to go the tubular route.

RobbieTunes

There, "fixed" it for you. No muss, no fuss.

Wileyone 

Sorry I will try and use a better "descriptor" next time.

In many ways Clinchers are a PITA to use also. Having to use a foursome to get a Tyre on a rim has always been a PITA for me. And don't get me going on pinch flats.

Tubulars are lighter, faster,ride nicer and so much cooler than Clinchers.

Is it ok for me to use PITA as my new "descriptor" fraze?

exmechanic89

Absolutely! Knock yourself out.

merziac

Maybe

Wileyone 

Great thanks. I didn't want to infringe on any copyrights you might have .

kunsunoke 

If glued or taped properly and inflated to operating pressures, tubulars don't roll off. And they have the advantage of staying where they belong when and if the tire does flat. I've personally experienced the joy of having a clincher flat on me and having to pick gravel out of my arms and face afterwards, hence my comment about safety. That same thing has never happened with tubulars - and I ride hills frequently here in Pennsy.

Regarding strength - most modern clinchers are overbuilt to compensate for falling spoke counts. They don't stay straight for very long. One of my riding buds has gone through three sets of modern clincher wheels on his current touring mount within the course of a year. I'm keeping my GP4s and Sprinter Gatorskins, thanks.

kunsunoke 

Some of the tubular rims/wheelsets out there are quite strong. The 32-spoke Velocity Major Tom comes to mind, as does the Mavic Reflex in 32 or 36 spoke variants. People often forget that the spokes are the most important part of any wheel. Specifically, wheel manufacturers forget that, which is why spoke counts are falling to stupidly low levels. There's no point in saving spoke weight if you gain some of it back in rim mass and the wheel tacos easily.

If you build your own wheelsets then the problem is pretty easily solved. In the op's case, the wheelset has already been built. Italian bikes need tubulars.

anotherbike

I just priced the cost of a pair of new tubular tires, plus glue and solvent, ouch!.
With the cost of the bike, plus tires, glue, etc. I may be biting off more than I can chew right now.
I like the bike but to get it without a big cash outlay I have to give up a few things I'm not sure I want to part with if I still have to throw a few hundred bucks at the bike.
I have to do some thinking on this one now.
I also watched a few videos on Ytube about changing tubular tires and I'm not sure I have that kind of patience.
I checked a few local bike shops and none in this area will touch tubular tires, they all said they were obsolete.
The one shop I found that will do them wanted $100 per tire plus the cost of the tire and glue and they said I'd have to leave the wheels with them for a week or more.
From what I can tell by watching the vids online, it appears that the glue is a contact adhesive? If so, half of the vids are using it wrong?
In the past I've seen two types of glue on old tubular rims, some is hard and lumpy like dried up wood glue, the other is soft like rubber cement. The rubber cement looking stuff comes off with solvent, I think I cleaned up a set of old rims I sold with lacquer thinner and they came perfectly clean, the set of older Mavic rims I had here once had dark brown lumpy glue stuck to them after the tires all but rotted off the rims. The remaining glue was the color of coffee and nothing short of a wire wheels would remove it and even then it wasn't a perfect after going through a dozen or so Dremel wire wheel discs.
Clinchers just sound so much easier but finding a suitable set of Italian clincher rims in 700c will likely be costly as well. I don't see anything decent on fleabay right now and the few 700c clinchers up for sale are way expensive. I remember buying Rigida 1320 700c rims at the bike shop back in the 80's for $10 each. Now they want $100+ each.
I do have some new old stock Weinmann concave rims from the 70's here but I've always tried to keep them for bikes that came with those in the first place. (I've got a set on my 1978 Raleigh International and a pair on my Super Coarse).

merziac

So Fiamme in particular because they were one of the weight weenie of choice rims and light they were but often built up with the lightest spokes they often didn't survive more than a few races or training rides.

Try finding a good usable set that has survived, they are few and far between. Same goes for the rest of the iconic brands. New ones built up today properly with good spokes and skill will surely go a lot further, on top of that I think most of us ride with far less abandon than we did bitd.

Salamandrine 

I don't agree. Fiamme reds were a fine training rim. It was my main rim BITD due to the price/performance mostly. Fairly inexpensive. I'd go through about 2 back rims and one front rim a year, but at the time I was averaging about 15000 miles/year, so not bad. A few hundred training rides. Still, they are a bit on the light side at ~350g.

merziac

You'll notice I said often, maybe more often then not, maybe not. Sounds like you had a good handle on respect for equipment, many often did not. As always YMMV and yours was good,very good. Don't get me wrong they were/are cool but you don't see many that lived to tell the tale. I actually have a couple of sets that are in good shape so they are out there.

randyjawa 

Get the bike. It is a very good deal and a very collectible steed. With luck, the tires will hold air and you can, at least, try it for a short while and at slow speed(you are taking a chance riding old rubber, though). Even if they don't hold air, you still got an incredible deal so don't worry. Recouping your cash outlay for the bike will be easy, as far as I am concerned. And...

Keep your eyes peeled for a doner bike on Craigslist. They can often times be had for cheap and then you can harvest the wheel set for the Legnano, still have the tubulars in case you ever do seek absolute original and you have a great bike to ride. Put another way...

I can't believe that the bike is still available. Were it in my neck of the woods, I would have bought it immediately.

due ruote 

OP, as someone said earlier, a few decades ago, all serious riders rode tubulars. So how hard can it be? Certainly not as hard as your LBS makes it out to be. And no, they are not obsolete.
As for cleaning the rims, in almost all cases, there really is no compelling reason to do it.
I'm not trying to talk you into making a purchase you can't afford, but really, the tires are not a great reason not to buy the bike.

Wileyone 

Good advice.
Buy the Bike now and worry about the wheels later.

Wileyone 

A few decades ago?

You would be hard pressed to find any Pro rider in a major tour riding anything but Tubulars.

Road Fan

The tires are part of the experience of a fantastic vintage bike like that. If that's why you want it, you need to at least try the tubulars, and to keep the tubular wheels with the bike.

If you just want a bike that will ride over anything without causing any rider frazzle, you can put armored clinchers on anything. In that case leave this bike for somebody else.

If you want to experience one of the best road machines ever as it was intended, make the tubulars work for you.

Narhay

Any old bike is going to require a couple hundred dollars and time to get it back on the road. Older, nicer bikes will require more dollars while others can often make do with less. Tubulars range from $20/per to more than a hundred.

$650 usd is decent but not a screaming deal. That is approaching $850 cad.

Funny enough I just finished off a set of Fiamme Red Label tubulars from a Legnano.

Record/Fiamme tubular wheel rescue

Road Fan

To the OP: if you plan to go with donor wheels, you need to be aware that for this bike the width between the rear dropouts is probably 120 mm. The vast majority of donors will be width at least 126 mm. If you intend such a wheel, some say you can stretch the frame open and muscle the wheel in. I believe that it is best to have the frame stretched by someone who knows what he/she is doing and then not to have it bent back. In other words your original and donor wheels need to be intended for the same dropout width. This makes it more problematic to find a suitable donor in good condition that has high quality wheels.

Narhay

If you find an amazing deal on 126mm spaced wheels you can buy the 120mm axle for a Record hub and just remove a few spacers. That being said I have just as many 120mm wheels as I do 126...depends on the era of donor bike you are looking at.

tiredhands 

Has anyone mentioned Yellow Jersey in this thread yet? I just got their $50 "pair and a spare" deal for my first tubular experience and it was pretty inexpensive and painless. They're not race tires, but I used them for a club ride last night and got my fastest time yet. Yellow Jersey was a pleasure to do business with, too, got my tires in the same week I ordered them.
I got a deal on a Dura Ace/Mavic wheelset that would be impossible if they were clinchers. With a $25 tub of Mastik I am set for life. I cleaned the old glue off the rims with a heat gun and some $6 acetone. I'm going to get some Stan's to put in the tubes this weekend.
All said, even with the initial layout for the tub of glue, I've got a nice light wheelset and tires that cost less than a similar clincher wheelset, three modern light tires, and three lightweight tubes. And I'm a clydesdale, so I don't have to worry about pinching flat any pricey tubes.
It's still early to say if I'm a convert for life, but I'm excited about this new tubular world. I've got plans to build a CX wheelset next!

crank_addict

My last purchase of panaracer practice 270 cost $21 each. Continental glue was $1 tube.
(BTW: Both above purchases were from two different bike shops and NOT online.)

Forget about your solvents too. You don't need to fully clean the old residue or mess with Dremel this and that. Take 5 minutes with a 3M scuff pad. Jeezo

For applying the glue, both tire and rim -use sparingly and a few coats between curing spread with disposable small brushes from Harbor Freight. Package of 20 or so is only a couple of bucks. One tube 4oz is plenty + per wheel.

Run away from the 'Bonehead Bike Shop'. These are not knowledgeable bike folks. Matter of fact are fools for losing a potential sale.... and here we go again of bike shops COMPLAINING of losing sales and business. Lol

TenGrainBread 

Do you have evidence for your claim that isn't anecdotal? Looking at popular clincher rim weights in dealer catalogs like QBP, I don't see anything that indicates they are particularly overbuilt compared to older rims. Nor do I understand why you think an overbuilt rim would lead to less strength or a tendency to go out of true.The most common OEM clinchers on nice road bikes are generally 28 or 32 hole anyway.

If you asked an experienced mechanic about the tendency for modern clinchers to stay in true, I don't think you would hear that they go out of true more often than older rims. This has been my experience. Jan Heine has a good article about modern rims tendency towards being wider and having better spoke-bracing angles, which help with strength.

Wildwood 

Noon on Wednesday - Legnano still listed - Southern New Jersey, USA.

Road Fan

Granted, it could all work out well. But my experience looking for decent 120 mm with 27x1 ¼ clincher was not so lucky. Ditto for finding spare Campagnolo axles.