I cheated a long walk home once again with a 35-miler today. I still have to buy a spare tire, but I have to get through three weeks before that happens. The roads up here are clean enough to eat off of, though, and my R4's have Hard Case Lite puncture protection. https://www.mapmyride.com/workout/7274009617/

Tempting the fates, eh? It just takes one idiot with a pop/beer bottle.

...or an inattentive rider.

You take the all "risks" on your rides you wanna take :). It's your decision after all. Hell, some ppl go on rides without tools or anything.
Personally, since I have nobody to call to pick me up, I have to have some form of strategy to get me to the next train station and back home. Thus i don't ever ride (unless it's like 5 km) without a spare tubular and some sealant. If i had another ways to fix punctures on the road, I'd take those too. :)

Outside of the reasons that I've already noted, I do carry the sealant and the motorists around here are nice, and will stop to ask if any cyclist needs a hand or a ride. Anyway, we are only talking about ten rides on this bike between now and when I can pick up a tire.

Sometimes it's blind luck (or maybe there are bikes that look after us). 1977, my racing days. New England March with typical late winter deep potholes. Well I hit one just as a car passed me. Hard. Wheel and tires made it. (CX tubbies; they didin't care and year old, now fully square rims; another dent couldn't be felt.) This happened 20 miles west of Boston. 10 miles later I look down. "What??!!" There's a 30 degree bend in the HB at the end of the reinforcing sleeve. Grab the bar next to the stem, then ride gently about three miles to my training partner's house, go in the kitchen door I knew was unlocked, looked at the train schedule on the backside of the door. A train to Cambridge in 45 minutes! Ride two miles to the station. Train stops a mile form my apartment. (Conductor barred the way, saying no bikes outside of rush hour commuter trains. I pointed to the handlebar and said I lived by the next station. "We can put that in baggage."

(That bike never left me stranded. Many crashes. Typically 5/winter in my snow and no car days. I"d just pick it up, maybe straighten the bars and ride on. Once an ambulance came to retrieve me and it found its way home. I never learned how.)

But yes, spares and sealant. Belt and suspenders. I'd rather not burden the bike's best wishes on the little stuff.

And speaking of my current bike that has looked after me. Jessica J is about to get tubbed. Just received a pair of Ambrosio Futura Rims to be rears. Aero with a deep braking surface so brake pads stay on the rim throughout the 2" of dropout travel. Just found out about Ben's Cyclery's fix/fix hubs. (MIches have gone off into the NOS netherlands.) First tires will be Corsa Gs, 28c. Still looking for a "race" rear aero that will get the 25c Veloflexes I have. Fronts will be same tire, GP4 "training", 330 "race". (Looking after me - Jessica conveniently had a mysterious chain slack issue on my 2000' pre-mountainous 2014 Cycle Oregon training ride. At the ride's high point with all the fun descending in front of me. The fast, tight, slightly banked and always clean corner I love to come in hard, brake hard and take fast! Well, i could not set the chain to 1) not throw itself off and 2) not kill the hub and BB bearings unless I wanted to ride down the whole thing on the 42-17 and a 60 yo butt. No thanks! So I nursed the bike down nice and slow. Boring. 5 miles from home, the bike started bucking ever time i touched the front brake! Both fork blades were about to snap. Total crack radius - a full revolution. Next day, the builder pulled the right blade off with his bare hands. I'd already spread the fork nearly a foot with mine just searching for the source of the bucking. The fault of decisions made by me, the fork builder and the metal plater, not the bike. Thank you, Jessica!).

Sometimes, you have to have a little bad luck to see just how good your luck really is.

I think we're all going to have three flats in a short time frame very soon.

Now if I could only get my hands on a Lee Oskar Low Eb harmonica, I'd be in heaven. With those 3 flats, a minor blues in the key of F. (So called 3rd position.) Sadly NOS low Ebs are not to be had. Nor just plain old. Or even new. At any cost. Lee Oscar hasn't started making them yet. But there's hope. 30 years ago there was but one "low" Lee Oscar; F. A few years ago he expanded the range and I now have low E, D and C plus low F#. (So I don't have to worry about the flats but I'll still keep my bikes out of the living room because of that sharp.)

The low F is my all time favorite harp. Great bends. The low D and C are so low I simply do not have the pipes to blow the bends.

Maybe his (or your) next album should be A Cure For the Flats and feature a cyclist on the cover ascending a steep hill, sweating profusely, while calmly playing one of those E♭'s.

Sadly, I just had to glue up my last two pristine Veloflex Crits. I thought I was going to be able to patch the Vitt CXes, but the tubes came out looking like wrinkled prunes. Only one had sealant in, but both were thin and stuck together. Funny thing is that I have some of that same tubing in my patch kit which feels just fine, but it looks as if wear has chafed a lot of the tube in these recent flats away. Anyone have this experience? On a similar note, can anyone compare the tubes Veloflex used in the early 2000s in their Crits with those they use in their current sew-ups? The old Veloflex tires seems to have beefier latex tubes than the Thai made Vitts I first used on my Mooneys.

What years are those Vitt CXes? Just asking as a data point. I don't know when Vittoria started the Thai operation but I think they have had growing pains. Late '00s, early teens the cheap green clinchers that were a great gripping commuter tire had bead and sidewall issues. About the same time, the Rubonos were hard and very slippery on the wet. It will be interesting to open my last summer's G+ and compare to your observations here.

All the tubbies I've ridden so far (starting back into them last summer) have been Vittoria save a couple of Conti Giros. (24c being the max on one bike and 23s very hard to source late last summer.) The Rallys that have seen use only as spares aren't great tires but QC seemed very good. Decently straight and uniform for a cheapo. And all the Gs - wow! But I haven't looked inside their guts yet.

Uphill and playing that harp right is tough. Takes two hands to get "the sound".

They came with my 1999 and 2000 Mooneys. I forgot the year I switched over to Veloflex, but there were two (no-longer existing) grey importers back then so I bought a bunch.

Quick check with calipers on samples from my patch kit suggests the Vlfx tubes are about 1.2 times as thick as those of the Vitts.

Edit: I bought my first three Veloflexes in 2001 for an audition which went well excepting my rear getting eaten by a brass screw in the road within a month. I, later that year, got a big stash and just glued up the last two a week ago. No idea if the construction has changed much save for the new tread strips.

Can someone out there make a comparison between Veloflex's Criterium and their ProTour (especially in 23mm and not the ProTourRace)? What do you think of the current offering? I've been riding the Crits, and I'm out of fresh tires. What do I have in store?

Help with suggestions?
 

I'm dipping my toes into tubs. I am looking for a 26-28mm, tan/cream wall, slick or nearly so. Middle range, with puncture resistance being more important than weight or performance. Any suggestions or ideas are appreciated.

These have hard case lite puncture protection. Handmade and 320 tpi. Max psi: 190.
https://www.mercari.com/us/item/m905...8aAtY7EALw_wcB

I've been using Tufo tape since I discovered tubulars a couple of years back.
But had a couple of issues with it

1. Usually one side is a bit 'dry' at the end of the roll.
2. Had issues with it creeping sideways over 6 months and having to trim it with a scalpel against the braking surface.

So I'd heard of Jantex tape and when I was looking around last week found MerlinCycles were selling it at £3.59/roll which is about 25% of the Tufo price.
https://www.merlincycles.com/velox-j...ape-81504.html

Got 2 rolls and they sent me a free box of 10 energy bars (choc chip and quite nice).
I've now tried it and seems to be better than Tufo tape, for a start it's rolled up tight like sellotape so it's sticky all the way to the end.

On the up side I did manage to remove a tyre with Tufo tape and reinstall it with Jantex tape so I'm getting better at this.

I'm starting to scout around for a set of inexpensive tubulars. I rather like the Vittoria Rally, but I was hoping for something a bit wider than 25mm. In my searching, once I constrain the search to 28mm, I'm immediately in the high-priced arena ($120+). You'd think with the trend toward wider tires in general that someone would have added a "training" tubular in the 27-30mm range. Anything out there?

I've been running Vittoria Rubino Pro G+ 28mm for the last 1500 miles, I like them a lot.
Looking to get another 2 for a different bike.

Butyl tubes but £35 each when I got them.
I got mine from Merlin Cycles (uk) https://www.merlincycles.com/vittori...0c-140868.html
but that's showing out of stock atm.

Update 2023/06/14: back in stock at Merlin Cycles :)

Which Tubulars: Clement or Schwalbe?
 

A few weeks ago, I picked up this pristine '89 Schwinn 974 equipped with Shimano 600 Tricolor. The 126mm spaced 600 UG cassette hubs are laced to Wolber aero clinchers. The original 19mm tires were cracked but still holding air. Everything was original except the Bianchi saddle and the Profile bar extensions.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e2234ced5c.jpg
Original CL photo
I did take it for one ride on the 19mm cracking Schwinn Prologue tires, prior to my new tire order arriving.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ff98050ce8.jpg
$30 Goodyear Eagles at 25mm (folding bead). Nice tires for the price. Lite and supple.
As you can see the Wolber rims are not a great match for the anodizing on the 600 group.

This past spring, I picked up a set of 126mm spaced Dura Ace UG cassette hubs laced to Ambrosia aero tubular rims, which match the color of the 600 Tricolor gear. Yesterday I finished cleaning off the old glue and stretched a 27mm Schwalbe One on the rear and a Clement (size not marked, measures about 22-23mm) on the front.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3da03797f7.jpg
The Schwalbe One needed to be deflated to mount and the clearance at the brake bridge and BB bridge is minimal (+/- 2mm).

So--- which tubulars? BTW, I also have a set of Vittoria Rallys and Continental Gatorskins (both 25mm) I can use. I've promised myself that I'm not purchasing another set of tubulars until I'm down to one spare pair. :p

Not training tubulars, but a killer deal on tubulars that are in your size range.

excel sports has twin packs of either Victoria Corsa Control G2.0 or Victoria Corsa G2.0 for $89 for the pair so $44.50 each.The Corsa controls go up to 30's.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. I bought a couple pairs, one in 28, one in 30.

I ended up getting 3 pair. I already have 2 pairs of 30's mounted, so I got 2 pair of 28's and then a pair of the Corsa's in 25 for a build I'm doing with my lightest wheel option (Hi-E hubs with Fiamme Erdal's).