I'd like to hear to how the Elite Pro's work out for you. I'll be building my first set of tubular wheels shortly, and this is the tire I'm leaning towards starting with. Either the Challenge Elite Pro or the Tufo S33 Pro.

That's how I read the riddle too. When I first considered tubulars the BF member who got me started rode cheapies but admitted they could be better. (One blew out on a ride we were on. Bang!!) Some other BF member once posted that life is too short to ride cheap tubulars. I've subscribed to that philosophy ever since. I wouldn't know what cheap tubulars are like but I doooo like the ride of good ones. My preference has been 23mm Veloflex Criteriums. High-end clinchers like the Veloflex Master can be quite tubular-like but still aren't the same.

One thing I don't get is the seeming binary aspect of tubies......ether high end and great or low end and adequate (or worse) from the same manufacturer. Seem like the should be some middle ground......

@squirtdad - I agree but..... Look at the thread count to begin with. Higher thread count => ride quality. Then add the additional construction features of multiple layers. The gap is often bridged with sales on the lower middle tires.

I suspect quality was more continuous BITD when more people rode sew--ups and there were relatively few (no?) good clinchers.

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There's more to it than that. I did an event in January that had a good LBS as support and I asked them to check out my bike because I was getting some brake rub around the switchbacks. He told my my rims were shot and I needed new wheels... he was right. He told me he sells a lot of tubeless wheels that would give the same sweet quality ride as the tubulars I had on...but it is not just about the ride quality. There's a whole tubular experience that I enjoy. Built up my own new wheels a couple weeks later and I love them.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ss...A=w353-h627-no

Maybe off-topic, but definitely refers to the market. Used tubulars are often a great buy.

Add in the sell-off of a lot of 8/9/10-speed wheelsets because they can't run 11-sp cassettes. (Except for many Mavics, for which used prices are increasing)
Add in that you can get an 11-sp cassette (11-32/34 only) that will run on 8/9/10 hubs.

Equaling some great deals on 8/9/10 tubular wheelsets that can be made to run 7-11 speeds.

I was looking on CL for just such things. Found some 10-sp Mavic SSL tubulars, and yep, they are about double what they were 3 years ago. Found some 10-sp Zipps and they were about half. Bought the Zipps, and the "tubular tired" seller threw in 2 pair of new carbon brake pads, 4 new tubular tires, all his valve extenders, tubular tape, sealant, etc.

The tubular market in used wheels is very, very nice to play in, and tires often come with 'em.

I love that you sometimes see 8-9-10-speed stuff on eBay in the vintage bike parts category. So not completely off-topic, Rob. :)

Yesterday I rode 55.68 miles on a bike with tubulars. When I was returning home with just a few blocks to go and in the next to last turn, the front tire went flat and lost most of its cornering bite. Fortunately I wasn't going very fast. I stopped, checked it over. Yep, it sure was flat. I rode the last few blocks as it was, leaning back to shift my weight from the front to the rear and avoiding any bumps (it was smooth pavement). Tire and wheel survived. Later I put some Stan's Tire Seal and a bit of air in it, spun it around a bunch, pumped it up again. It held air. Today I rode it 36.35 miles with no depressurization incident.

Great clip from 'super chief wrench' Julian de Vries. Speedy tubulars by aging.

How long do people leave tires on unglued rims to stretch them? I am putting some Challenge Elite Pro 25mm on, they went on the unglued rim pretty easily. (easier that the tufo s33's which were my first foray into tubular), I did remember to be patient, put the tire on slowly pulling it out so to speak.

next up will be doing the glue, I have used tufo rim tape before.

the fun thing is that after I fix some broken spokes i will be able to do a direct compare between the Challenge Elite Pro 25mm, the tufo s33, and even some michelin pro4 clincher on the same bike

I have been known to let them go 6 months as part of the aging process. You are going into winter, are you likely to ride them soon? Let them go a month unglued, glue them, then leave them to age in a darker corner of the basement. Come spring you are ready to rock and not roll them off the rim. :)

California winter is more like Montana early summer..... it is pretty sure I won't have the patience to not try them out....but this bike (team miyata) won't be my primary ride so they will get some defacto aging thanx

If they went on easy, you are ready to glue. Continentals are a bear to mount for a stretching session and after weeks of stretching at 100psi, they are still a bear to mount for glueing.

I usually just let them stretch for a day or two. If you can get them on and off the rim without too much trouble then doing the same once you have applied glue isn't so much harder.

As for glue, I finally ordered a small can of Vittoria mastic and bought a bunch of small inexpensive artist's brushes from the local hardwrae store. Applying glue to either tire or rim with a brush is so much easier than squeezing it out of a tube. I've re-used the brushes once or twice but will most often just toss it and use another. Prepping tires was never so easy.

Stan's didn't hold. Oh well, got a couple more rides out of this old tire. Been glued on for a year - judging from how hard it was to get off, my glue jobs are top notch.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/WY...=w1024-h744-no

Packs of acid brushes are VERY cheap from harbor freight. I usually use two on a tire gluing session. I only leave the tire two or three days to stretch and not have had an issue even with my go-to sprinter tires. What is the benefit of leaving a tire 'age' for months?

I'm not sure, but I know some of the CR folks indicated that certain tires did require a fair amount of aging before use. Maybe something to do with curing of the solvents used in construction?

I tend to agree with this for the most part. One caveat: a few tires BITD did get noticeably more flat resistant as they got older. Mostly it was trivial and not worth bothering with. As mentioned ^^^, at the same time the casings were getting weaker though, which is more important. Also, tires now tend to have flat resistant belts so aging is even more pointless.

Specifically and FWIW, I remember that Continental sewups had a reputation for the tread rubber getting harder and more flat resistant after a few months. This was in the early 80s when they first started selling them in the US.

I generally just stretch a tire overnight, if I bother to do it at all.

Aging tires gives time for the rubber to oxidize and get a bit harder, and less sticky. There is also probably a slight amount of less grip, but the trade off was always assumed to be in the aged tire's favor.
I found way back as I did not have the cash flow to buy much for future use, that if a tire made it 6 months without puncturing, you were in for many trouble free miles.
(in casual report with an aged tire, one just felt less road debris clung to the tire when you reached down to wipe it off )

Just once met a shipment of hot off the presses Clement tubulars. They stank of solvent. Could not be sold. Moved them to most remote part of shop and waited two weeks before bringing them back out. Those tires would have benefited from aging. Most of the time distribution channels were slow and creaky and tires had some sort of aging before customers saw them.

Appropriate rim for any Shimano hub would be Araya. Araya 16B if you want to stick with flat rims.

A fine rim @63rickert and if you don't mind make that tubular a 19mm .

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ploAA...GA/s-l1600.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ploAA...GA/s-l1600.jpg

Lenton58! Haven't seen your name in a long time. If you've been gone, welcome back!