Originally Posted by
aaronmcd
What's wrong with tubeless vs tubular? (No experience with either.) It just seems to me (1) my rims are tubeless ready and (2) tubeless doesn't require a professional glue job and a boatload of labor when it does flat (as far as I know).
honestly, this is a question to talk about on a long ride, or there has been a ton written about tubulars that you can easily google.
briefly:
1: tubeless solves some problems, but it may not solve yours. they can be great if your flats are caused by tiny little things -- like cactus needles when riding MTB trails in arizona. you can burp a tire or get a cut that is too big to seal. these can lead to fast loss of pressure. also, if you do have to change a flat on the road it can range from messy (sealant) to mildly frustrating (TL requires a tight fit) to a total PITA (broken levers--depends on rim & tire combo).
2: tubulars do NOT require a professional glue job. when you were a little kid, did you ever do an arts and crafts project with colored paper and a glue stick? that's the level of difficulty we're talking about (no joke). there are subtleties and it can take a while (letting glue dry, mostly), and doing things clean takes a few tries to dial in, but's it's not HARD.
sometimes it's a PITA -- if you flat during the evening crit at a stage race you'll have to hustle to re-glue for the next morning's RR, but as a racer just grab a spare wheel or a neutral wheel. there are some tricks for changing a flat on the road, but you can also try sealant (cafe latex) or even ride a flat. That's also where the safety comes in--the mechanical interface means that in the event of a sudden loss of pressure (really rare), you still have a bit of rubber between your rim and the road. This can buy you a few seconds on a mountain descent, but sometimes that couple seconds is all you may need.
stripping a tubular rim to bare carbon takes some work, but you actually don't have to do this very often if you did a good glue job in the first place. it's like every 4 or 5 tire changes for me, so 4,000+ RACE miles.
tubulars don't pinch (yeah, someone has gotten that to happen, but it's incredibly rare), and you can run them at lower pressure than tubes as a result.
not trying to persuade you, but given what you described it just doesn't seem like switching frames or rims would solve your issue. IME hits square edges hard with TL wheels/tires isn't great for them.
the only thing i'd like to dispel is that tubulars are HARD to deal with and that the advantages they provide are obsolete.