Originally Posted by
Road Fan
I'm not the subject of the thread, but thank you for your concern. No, I don't ride bikes with dry, flaking rubber, since it's absolutely essential that the tire generates traction. If my rubber is in good condition and has some blemishes that can be patched and re-adhered to the base, I've done that a few times. Remember the Shoe Goo has some cyanoacrylate in the formula. I've been riding with tubulars beginning a little before the Super Course in question was new, so I've gained a few tricks that have helped me from time to time. I hope they can still help other folks. Perhaps you would not want to return such a tire to use, and that's your call. But you cannot predict that you won't have problems if you never ride on such a tire is such condition. And you could have problems due to failures that do not involve tires, or due to road conditions.
But in the history of this group and a few of the similar groups (example on Google), there are tubulars that had a history of carcasses that break spontaneously. I once was a proponent of that brand of tire, and after I saw those I stopped using anything new from that brand.
If there is a flat in most riding (straight or gentle turns), the bike capsizing and throwing you to the ground is mainly a feature of clinchers, which usually lose nearly all their air immediately, and then the wheel has zero traction - no steerability or braking traction. Tubulars when punctured usually lose air slower, since there is no bead to separate from the rim and the tubular casing, even light silk, is very hard to cut or tear. Try it! If it takes your 5 minutes at the workbench (tin snips are cheating!) it is not going to surprise you on the road, and that means that in an emergency you will have time to stop under control, catch your breath, and dismount safely.
I had a broken tubular sidewall due to a few of the threads being cut by an X-Acto knife. After riding it a few hours the tube herniated out through the little hole, like a balloon. A loud bang, but after that the pressure took about 30 sec to go away. The hole did not grow and the casing did not tear open. I had time to get on the brakes, and tubulars glued well let you retain some braking and steerability. If this happens in a 1-g turn (45 dgree heeled over) that's most likely a different story. But someone who rides that aggressively on roads is self-endangering, anyway. The experts riding that way all the time in the TDF have more experts preparing their bikes before every ride.
Damage to your bike? Mainly only if it falls. If you don't have your foot bolted to the pedal and you side-slip, you can kick out your foot as a buffer and to push yourself back up straight. If you can't get out of your clip-on that quickly (I can get out of my toe-clips with straps that quickly - the secrets are no cleats, smooth shoe soles and low strap tension) you should not be in clip-on road shoes. But that kick-out will keep you from falling and tearing your kit and skin, scraping your paint, needing PT or even surgery, and maybe even causing future asplosion of a carbon frame due to tearing fibers on the surface layers, if that's what you ride.