Probably more hassle than it is worth. Got it from Ribble in UK and I have not seen them in stock for some time. I paid about half what they list for now, so it does not hurt as much as it might have.

You may well be right.

I did send back a defective saddle to Ribble though and they did a great job getting everything credited.

Re. tire savers: in my experience they do prevent flats - especially on the rear - but the whine from them drives me bat**** in no time.

The tubular tire I had mounted on the rear of my bike had a little rippling at the edges of the rubber where it meets the sidewall. It's an older tubular from the 80s, but the sidewalls were in good condition, lots of tread, still felt supple. It's also a Vittoria Squadre Prof seta, too nice a tire to let go to waste. I'd been intending to glue down the edges, but I didn't think much of it, other than it being a cosmetic issue.

Yesterday, I rode up the 10+ mile climb to Mt. Diablo to watch the finish of the penultimate stage of the Tour of CA. After the broom wagon went through, the entire stretch of the mountain became one mass of spectators on foot and bike, support vehicles, cops, pro riders making their way to the waiting team bus at the bottom, team cars, and spectators on foot, shuttle buses, etc. all trying to get off the mountain ahead of the person behind them. I felt like I was leaving the Bear Mountain picnic. Not far down the descent, I thought I heard a faint noise coming from the rear of the bike, gave a a couple looks down, but everything seemed fine and I could not locate the sound while moving. I though perhaps it was the base tape on the tubular grazing the brake pad. I kept going, reluctant to stop before everyone else at the finish line started clogging the road. About half way down, I caught on to two BMC riders and held their wheel to the bottom, desceding through the crowds faster than most. I was enjoying riding on the wheel of these BMC riders while trying to shadow their line. The old steel bike felt great on the long descent and was handling the curves as well as any of the carbon wonders. Now at the bottom, with less wind noise I could hear the noise again. I dismounted and was startled to see that about 10 inches of rubber had peeled off the cotton casing, and was folded over to the side. I had just come down the long twisting descent inches from cars and other riders while riding on cotton casing. Yikes, close one.

Any, this is a roundabout way of providing a cautionary tale. If you have some old tubular tires that are begining to ruffle around the edges of the rubber, beware that the glue holding the rubber to the casing may be compromised overall. As I inspected the rubber on the tire more closely, I realized that it did not take much effort to pull away the rubber from the casing in other places as well. Inspect your old tires!

http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps57cab72d.jpg

Bonus photo:
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps2bcba545.jpg

Yes there is! :eek: I make half as much on each set! :>

(actually, either way is fine by me. Somebody's buying them, I'm pleased to say. Jan just ordered some more) :)

Whao, Gaucho. That is ugly. And, it seems odd for your location but maybe not, .... that looks like mold or mildew where the base tape glue was! Ye gods.....

Awww, stop yer whinin'. ;) What I started doing, Six Jours, is place them so they just barely kiss the tire. Even just a hair above it.
Not quite so noisy.

+1 for spacing just above the tire. They last longer too. Bend them to the profile of the tire to get the radius to the sidewall and cover all the tread.

It has been my experience that the modern adhesives (Vittoria, Continental Pasteli) behave much differently from the old Clement "red" and its period competition. Which is too bad. Much more work is required today, multiple layers on the rim and at least two on the tire if the tire has an uncoated base tape. No wonder why NOS tubes of Clement go for such silly amounts on ebay. I just did one, and darn if I won't have to peel it off and do it again, I get a "squishy" sound as the rear wheel rotates at one point. New tire mounted very true, and feels bonded butI don't like the noise.

Wish they still made the "Old Red" Gutta.

Yah, I had two layers with some added touch ups on the base tape and it still did not work out 100%. Next time I'll do at least one more layer of glue on all my tires and rims, just to make sure..... Continental glue next time though.....

I do 2 layers on the base tape and one on the rim. Works fine for me (WFFM). I often leave a spont opposite the valve with less so I have a place to remove the tire. After a few runs the noise goes away. The last two rims I didn't put any glue on the base or the rim on a 3/4" or less section and have no noise at all. This is with the YJ tires.

+1. I've also experience the same noise. In my case, there was a very small gap near the valve due to poor tire construction (cheap Rally). I was able to pinpoint where the noise was coming from in the wheel's rotation. As the tire rotated, it pushed down the gap and led to a squishing sounds at each tire rotation. I find that modern glues do not dry as hard as the old Clement mastik, and I think this more than anything contributes to the likelihood of such noises.

I'm pretty sure there is no mold on the tire. The cotton casing is just dark from the rubber, as well as some dirt from the road (since I was riding on the cotton casing). I think the glue holding the rubber to the casing had simply dried up and lost it's hold over the years.

At sometime in the early days of this thread I was persuaded to try a better tyre than the Rallys and Gommitalias that I was familiar with and ended up getting a pair of 25mm Veloflex Arenbergs. I was immediately smitten by their ease of fitting, the evenness of their construction, their nice grip on rough surfaces and their plusher ride. Since then I've changed almost all my machines to the same tyres and the ones I haven't are because I'm waiting for the old tyres to wear out. I chose the Arenbergs because they were available in 25mm.

However, the one drawback is that they need pumping up every day. This is due, I have since learnt, to them having latex inner tubes. I sometimes pump them up twice in a day if it's a long day.

Can anyone recommend a tyre that's as nice as the Arenberg, in a minimum of 25mm (up to 28mm would be fine) with a butyl inner tune which holds air longer? Preferably black but with tan walls would be okay.

Does anyone know if Vittoria Pavé tubular tyres have butyl inner tubes. Can't find the info anywhere. Their website doesn't say...

I can't say, but maybe someone who uses them can say for how long they hold pressure? If when new they need to be pumped every day or two, they're latex. If it's considerably less frequent (a week to a few months), they're butyl.

I'm using the Challenge Parigi-Roubaix 27 mm tubulars now, and if I ride every two days they need pumping that often to get up to 7.5 to 8 bars.

I can't compare them to your Arenbergs, but I like the Challenge Parigi-Roubaix tubulars (27mm, black/tan). Perhaps they have latex tubes. I don't mind pumping them up every couple days. I just put in some Stan's sealant last night in an attempt to make them bulletproof for around town riding. Haven't tried them with the juice yet, however.

The Parigi-Roubaix is another tyre I like the look of but which has latex inner tubes. I'm beginning to suspect that all the good tyres are the same and that pumping 'em up every day is just the price you pay...

Let's see if the Pave has butyl. I'm not very keen on the green stripe but if it is butyl, I'd like to try it.

Dawes-man, I sympathize with your quest for a wide, good-quality, butyl tubular:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...th-butyl-tubes

P.s. Note that some of the recommendations in the thread linked above were latex tubs. Tufu cross tires with a diamond tread may be your best option. I briefly used some 34mm Tufu's but I didn't have enough clearance with fenders so I took them off.. They worked fine--seated well and gave a soft ride--though maybe a little sluggish. I'm now using 32mm Dugast Pipistrello tubulars on the same bike--awesome, but very pricey, and latex tubes.

I've never had tires hold air like my Tufo Diamonds, either tubular or clincher. They're great on hard pack and grass because that's what they're designed for. On the road, they're not so great. They ride more like cheap clinchers than tubulars. One of these days I want to try Tufo's road tires.

I think I recall Robbietunes posting that he races on Tufos.

The Tufo tape is great for a dufus like me that can't glue on a tubular without getting glue all over the tire and myself.

I think I'd go for blackwalls in this case because Tufo's tanwalls inexplicably tend to turn black over time.

http://imageshack.us/a/img6/7611/7dv8.jpg

Only asking because I'm not sure but, does if follow that with butyl tubes one would lose a certain amount of the "feel" of good tubulars?

That's a good question!

Thanks for the link. It confirms what I'm quickly finding out, that good tyres have latex inner tubes.

I think it's more a case of those who put the effort into making nice tyres are only interested in using latex, the lightest option available, as that optimises rolling and is what people who spend that much expect.

Perhaps even if they made a lovely tyre with lots of feel but a butyl inner it might not sell in enough numbers to make it worthwhile. Hence butyl is consigned to cheaper tyres.

I'm sure there is a long list of things that make a tyre great. I very much doubt I could tell the difference between an Arenberg with a latex inner and the same tyre, built in exactly the same way, but with a butyl inner but I guess a lot of pros could.

Just had a thought: www.tirealert.com. For ~$20 (discounts for multiple tires) they can replace the latex tubes with butyl tubes and add new base tape. I just spoke with someone over there who confirmed wide tubulars are not an issue (they do repair cross tire, too, after all; they can also repair with latex if the customer prefers). So, if you are willing to add $20 to the cost of a tire, the options are about as limited as latex tubulars. If I get a flat on my 32mm Dugasts, this is what I'm going to do. Disclaimer: I have no prior experience with tire alert, but it's something I've considered (actually, I probably heard about it 15 pages or so ago on this thread).

I can't say I've experienced it, but latex tubes are said to give a more supple ride. I own and use some latex tires, but I'm not sure they're great just because of the latex.

I'm sure I could not tell the difference either. Not like the difference between good tubulars and my clinchers, say.
I've also heard, way back when, that thin latex adds to the supple feel of good tires, but I'll wager most of it is in the casing and sidewall construction. Like the difference between a really good silk tire and a so-so cotton tire.

I didn't mean to suggest they were. Just the opposite, that latex is just one of the factors that makes a tyre good and that its qualities make it the material of choice for any manufacturer making top quality tyres.

It would be interesting to do that to see if you could tell the difference. Unfortunately, that's not a service which is available here in Japan. Looks like you're going to be our pioneer, gaucho777 :D