billh

I haven't made time to reglue my cx tubular tires for cyclocross race season and there are only three race weekends left. First race of the season, I rolled the rear tire off in the middle of the first race, in dramatic fashion, huge rippppping sound, fortunately I was going about 5 mph and deep in an off-camber berm, so no injuries; but I'm worried about the front tire. I've been racing clinchers but this weekend my son needs the clinchers in the very next race so I am using the front tubie with the 4-year old glue job. I've raced it before and OK on the flats, and this is a flat course. . . .

Anyway, the question! Is there anyway to apply a temp glue job without completely taking the tire off, cleaning the rims with solvent, and going through the entire reglueing process, which takes about a week for cx tires, multiple layers of glue on both tire and rim, with drying time. And without ruining the tires, still some life left in these grifos. I'm thinking about just deflating the tire, peel back what is loose, layer in some glue, reinflate and hope it holds. Regular Vittoria Mastik? Super glue? Gorilla glue? Suggestions?

AnkleWork

You don't like the empirical answer you already received, so you ask a bunch of anonymous jokers here . . . great idea.

And, it's a great idea to cut corners on your front race tire. Please (PLEASE, PLEASE) post a video of the result.

FBinNY 

I'm sure that it varies with the type of glue used, but have NEVER in 45+ years of riding tubulars, used solvent to clean old glue off rims. I do scrape excess or contaminated glue from the edges of rims when necessary (mostly when using narrow tires on shallow bottom rims), but otherwise consider old glue the best primer for improving the adhesion of fresh glue.

Remove the tire, scrape off any serious lumps in the old glue, apply a fresh coat and let it rest a few minutes,mount and inflate the tire. Your wheel will be ready to ride the next morning.

Lately folks have been making tubular mounting into an unnecessarily complicated ritual. It doesn't have to be that way, and doesn't improve adhesion.

BTW- the number one thing that keeps tubulars from rolling is the pressure that makes them constrict into the rim's hollow. This is a bit of a problem for CXers who feel the need to lower tire pressure looking for better traction. My personal rule is 60-70psi minimum.

JohnDThompson 

The quickest fix would be to use rim tape instead of cement. You'd want to remove the old glue first, though, and for that the quickest method I've found is a wire wheel mounted in a bench grinder. Takes about 30 seconds per wheel:







Tufo "Extreme" rim tape has worked well for me. Avoid the standard Tufo tape unless you're using Tufo tires.

Andrew R Stewart 

Good answers. But I'll add that if the glue is still soft using a wire wheel can be a bear. If the glue is all dried out/hard then that's the cat's meow. Andy.

cycledogg

If you find tubulars to be a royal PITA, then stay away from them. It's Wednesday, you have plenty of time to properly remove said tyre, and reglue. Otherwise, you "can" <I ONLY speak from my point of view here> lift up the areas where the tyre is not attached well and dab on some Vittoria mastik, inflate to max. psi and let dry over night. That "should" get you threw the race. Use your best judgement on this and consider how important it is to finish the race respectfully. If it were me, which it ani't, I would reglue the whole darn thing, and go tubless or clinchers next season.
Cheers

well biked

+1. The same thing can be said about CX tires with tubeless setups and the tires burping or going flat because of bottoming against the rim. CX tires are 'tweeners, between road and mountain......best ride feel and traction when run at low pressure, but can't be run at the crazy-low pressures of the tubeless mountain bike world because the tires simply don't have enough volume (talking tubeless here). Run them at too low pressure, and you risk rolling them (with tubulars), or a very inopportune flat running tubeless.

billh

geez, OK, OK, I'll reglue the darn tires!

Homebrew01

Yup.

Takes me about 15 minutes to glue a tire, and ride it the next day.
Take the old tire off and reglue it. It will be well strecthed and go on easily.