Niloc

ok I'm kinda itching to upgrade my road bike wheels. Or to add a performance option anyways. I've got a nice custom steel frame with full Campy 9-speed. Rides well but isn't going to win any weight weenie contests. I like to ride and I race, but cyclocross, not on the road. On the road I'm into group rides, fitness and getting into gran fondos / centuries etc.

My current wheels are Veloce 32H hubs laced to FiR clincher rims. The rear rim has some wobbles and needs truing. They aren't light I've been thinking can't afford another bike, I have enough already and while N+1 is the correct number to own, S-1 is also an important equation. However next best thing would be a new wheelset right? Single biggest improvement you can make, right? (Ok equipment improvement - I could also lose 8 lbs and improve my cardio) I could use them for the nice weather and keep the current ones for winter "training". Speaking of Campy a nice set of Eurus in a tubeless fit or something should do the trick, but too much scrilla.

So saw some nice older wheels but they're tubulars. Maybe old school so nobody wants em? Hmmm glue right? Lightweight (where it really counts - out at the rim and tire) and great ride yes? B!t&h if you flat though, no? Fine if you have the team support car following? Well I did some searching and maybe they're not as as much of a nightmare as I thought? Here's one link: diglloyd The Wind In My Face - Tubular / Sew-Up Tires For Road Biking - Why I Ride Tubular Tires Exclusively So flats are a more of a hassle, but they flat less frequently - no pinch flats and pinpricks can still be ridden home. Stan's sealant and a pump would fix most punctures? Worst case you have put on the spare and ride gingerly home?

Homebrew01

I really like tubulars, but save them for race day.
If you flat and put on a (pre-glued) spare, you can ride normal speed mostly, but be careful cornering. The sharper the corner, the slower you go.

I have no experience with sealant, but hear that it works most of the time.

Several threads on this topic recently.

Some say that good quality tubeless with sealant is the best of both worlds (I have never tried them)

HOWSER

I run tubulars on my TT bike, never had an issue. Though I've used that same set of wheels in a few crits I really prefer a good clincher. Just this past weekend we had a fellow roll his front tubular in a hard fast crit corner. Very ugly results.

To me it really depends on what type of riding you're going to do on them. The easy of a clincher wins out almost everytime.

Silvercivic27

Buy them! No, wait, don't buy them!

bikerjp

If you don't have a SAG...

Young Version

For me, it's REALLY hard to justify tubulars on a road bike unless it's race day. They make more sense for cross, since the advantage is much bigger.

banerjek

If you even have to ask, they're probably not a good fit

RobertL

My brother has a set of tubulars that he only uses on Time Trial race days. He says that they're nice and are just a bit faster, but doing it again he'd just get a nice set of clinchers.

Niloc

Probably the most helpful piece of advice. Seriously thanks for the comments folks. I just checked out my cyclocross wheels and my rear is pretty beat, concave braking surface and a couple wobbles. Maybe I should get the tubular wheels for this bike instead. Everybody says how tubulars are the cat's meow for cyclocross. I basically only use my 'cross bike for racing and off-road riding so they'd probably last a long time too, since the most common flat in those situations is the pinch flat, which you avoid by going to tubulars.

Maybe I should just look to upgrade my road bike wheels or rims, but keep in clincher. I have tires and tubes hanging in my garage...

hueyhoolihan

it's not like you will be married to them. get them. if you don't like them, sell them. but you'll never be able to speak authoritatively about tubulars until you've owned them.

rpenmanparker 

[QUOTE=hueyhoolihan;16731428]it's not like you will be married to them. get them. if you don't like them, sell them. but you'll never be able to speak authoritatively about tubulars until you've owned them.[/QUOTE]

I can speak authoritatively about tubulars having owned some. What is my take on that privilege? Well, to paraphrase "Fiddler on the Roof" being able to speak authoritatively about tubulars is no great shame, but it is no great honor either. OP, save yourself a bunch of grief and just say, "No!" Or as I have heard many times and agree with completely just like for boats, "The two happiest days of my life were the day I bought my tubulars and the day I sold them."

rangerdavid

yup. that's what I would recommend.

mike12

Life is short. Buy them & keep them if you like them. You're obviously intrigued. I have a set & flatted one about 12 miles from home. Put sealant in & made it home.

marqueemoon

If you race cyclocross this is a no-brainer. Put tubulars on the cross bike first. That's an application where the benefits over tubes (no pinch flats) and tubeless (no burping) are very clear, and there are some real performance gains to be had.

Unless you're rolling in dough tubulars are really only worth it if you're willing to roll up your sleeves a bit and actually enjoy the wrenching part.

On the wheels side tubulars can often be had/built pretty cheaply. It's the tires that will set you back.

I think road tubeless is going to take off in a bigger way pretty soon. I'm considering going with some 11-ready hubs for a new build and if I do that some tubeless ready rims will definitely be part of the package.

cycledogg

^ This. ^ I tried a few years back to run tubulars on a daily basis, it was a pure P.I.T.A. I now run tubs on the TT bike only. IMHO, your set-up would not benefit from running tubulars.
Cheers

chaulky61

Other than the expense of good tires, I do not see a down side to tubs. Once you get the hang of it, gluing is easy enough, the ride is sublime, in my experience they flatten considerable less often and the weight saving is significant. If you have invested considerable cash on a nice frame and group set, why ride inferior wheels?

woodcraft

I was going to say 'go for it'- it worked for me BITD until I eventually got tired of the mess, (and clinchers got better),

but after reading some of diglloyd's blogs, it may be on the slippery slope to some seriously OCD graphing of "Daily Caloric Excess/Deficit as Body Fat Drops Under Intense Training (With 10-day moving average and overall trendline)".

Plus, he pays $100/ tire, and $60 each to have them mounted at the LBS, plus sealant, etc..


So, +1 tubulars on the 'cross bike, get a good thimble, a finger strengthening program, and take pride in the glue- wherever it ends up!

hueyhoolihan

i remember trying to patch a flat (before the sealant era) on a tubular somewhere between Denver and Boulder in the early 80's. (after all, i'd read the book on how to do it!!) but while sitting on the side of the road a while and accomplishing little, i thought to myself, "you'd have to be a cross between King Kong and Betsy Ross to manage this successfully.". that was the end of it... but like i say, give it a try, some of my best friends use them.

gsa103

Road tubeless is awesome.

big chainring 

I think it takes some mechanical ability, manual dexterity, and some common sense. All the things most people lack these days. Strange how these simple attributes have been lost over a couple generations. They're just tires. You glue them on a rim and inflate. But I guess when downtube shifters are "way down there" and "are so difficult to work", I can see why something as simple as tubulars are "messy", "prone to flatting", "a hassle to deal with".

And whilst we're on the subject, is there a problem with hand strength in todays push a button world. So much is written about difficulty with braking, mounting tires, etc. Does anyone have a labor job anymore? Anyone do physical labor? Make a living using their hands?

kleng

Nothing beats the ride of a high tpi tubular (350tpi), using sealant stops most punctures immediately they occur. The type of damage that would render a tubular unusable would also have the same effect on a clincher tyre.

Tubular wheelset often have lighter rims and teamed with a super light tubular tyre (160 grams each), will give you significant weight savings, over a clincher wheel set.

The downside is the high performing tubulars are a 3rd more expensive than the equivalent clincher.

Using tubular tape to mount the tire is much easier, faster and less messy than glue, it takes about 5 minutes to mount a tire.

I have used tubulars for 5 years and in that time, I have only have one total loss due to a sidewall gash, the other punctures have been plugged by the sealant, but these have also been few and far between.

bikemig 

Tubies are nice; I'm glad I don't use them anymore.

cycledogg

(("Tubular wheelset often have lighter rims and teamed with a super light tubular tyre (160 grams each), will give you significant weight savings, over a clincher wheel set."))

This does not sell me on riding tubulars. In today's market, there are full carbon clincher wheels lighter than tubular wheels. There are also clinchers tires that meet or exceed that 160 gram weight. Then after applying glue (or tape) and adding the sealant, the total weight comes close to or more than a full carbon clincher wheel set with light weight tubes and tires. The most noticeable benefit I see in tubulars is ride quality and perhaps speed, which again, today can be hard to tell with the improvement of clinchers. I have no issue with the process which it takes to ride tubulars. The peeling of the old tire, cleaning the old, crusty glue, the gluing of the tire and mounting. I find personal satisfaction of the end product. It's just a long drawn out process to endure just to ride and have the same as or close to results just by using quality clincher wheels and tires. But, that's just me, Joe Rider.

Niloc

So do you put the sealant in as a preventative or add it and pump once you've gotten a flat? Are you saying you've only had to change one tubular on the road in (the sidewall gash) in 5 years? I'm not counting swapping tires or replacing worn tires in the comfort of your garage.

Niloc

Ride quality aside, I suspect that for the same money you can get a lighter wheelset by going tubular. I won't ever be buying full carbon anything. I saw an older used alloy tubular wheelset. High quality hubs. Maybe there's a lot of these sitting around people's garages - older dudes, ex-racers - that can be had for a good deal, because the vast majority of buyers want clinchers (makes sense I get it) and most of those that want tubs are racers who are looking at $2K+ aero carbon wheels etc.