Ofsinreno

I have read a number of posts about which is better; but I am curious about my situation specifically.
I have an S-Works Aethos that I have built as my main road bike. I live in the Reno area and ride the mountails around me often; but I also use this bike for long rides 80+ miles. I am not racing.
I currently have a set of Hyperwheels 38mm (1,350g), and a set of Craft Racing Works 50mm/60mm (1,300g); but I want a lighter set of climbing wheels. As good as they are, I am NOT interested in the Roval wheels that are so common with this bike.
I am looking at a set of Light Bicycle AR25 laced with Berd spokes to Extralite HyperSmart hubs. This tubeless wheelset has an internal width of 24mm and should be about 980g. I am also looking at a set of Brisk Tubular Hubs laced with their proprietary carbon-titanium spokes to the same Extralite hubs. This tubular wheelset has a width of 23mm and will weigh about 740g.
My questions is whether I should get the lighter tublar set, or forgo the weight savings for the ease of use of the tubeless? Again- they are climbing wheels as I already have 2 other sets of relatively light tubeless wheels for daily use. I plan on selling either the Hyper Wheels or the Craft wheels one way or the other.
Let me know what you think- or if there are other light options I am not thinking of.

Maelochs

I would look at worst-case scenarios. if you are at the top of a multi-mile mountain climb and get a puncture ... and then a second puncture (say, someone broke some glass or had a car accident and left glass and plastic shards on the roadway) will you have two or three tubulars and a way to glue on and inflate them? Would you be comfortable doing the descent on a flat tubular?

To me, both proposed wheel sets are so ridiculously light, neither would be significantly better or worse .... it isn't like I would fail to make a climb because of 200 grams of wheel weight. Of course, each person has his own standard.

If you are going to spend the kind of money i am sure is involved here .... and if you are willing to take the 1-in-1000 risk of multiple punctures ......

wheelreason

Not the tubulars.

Koyote

If I were riding a sub-1000g wheelset, I'd be more worried about the wheels falling apart than about punctures.

Someone will say it, so it might as well be me: I can't imagine why you'd want such wheels if you're not even racing. Actually, I can't even imagine using them for racing.

With all that said: tubeless.

Maelochs

I don't question why he wants them .... if he has the ability, why not? Why not buy a Rolls or a Lamborghini if you can afford one---despite the fact that one doesn't actually get any more comfort with the Rolls, and most will never use the Lambo withing 8/10ths of its potential ... and that only on track days at a local track?

We could all ride Walmart bikes .... but we value some "experience" which only the better bikes will give---we claim. I say it is a matter of choice .... personal preference.

13ollocks

tubeless - 980g is already bonkers light, and tubeless offers most of the advantages of tubulars without the faff of gluing (and the occasional cooling spray of sealant on a hot day&#128512

Iride01 

You might have more tire choices and width choices with tubeless tires vs tubular. But just like the tubeless users and tubed users, you'll find people that like them and hate them. You won't truly know which one of those you'll be until you have used them both.

KerryIrons

Just for reference, assuming the tires weigh the same (tubeless vs. tubular) that 240 gm saving would let you climb about 0.05 mph faster on a 6% grade. That means after an hour of climbing, you would be 250 feet farther up the road than your identical self on the tubeless wheelset. Only you can decide whether this advantage is worth the hassle of tubulars. And just so you can't accuse me of "What do you know about tubulars?" I rode them for 30 years when if you wanted light weight and performance, tubulars were pretty much the only option.

roadcrankr

The OP already owns and rides tubeless, so why not buy a nice tubular set?
On rides in remote areas, I might carry an extra tubular in addition to sealant.
Thousands of miles and never forced to use the extra tire or inject sealant.
Just always use high-quality tires, like Vittoria or Veloflex.

Wileyrat

I have a pair of Conti gp5000 s tr’s on my roadie, and while I like them, I may go with clinchers and tpu tubes next time around. A quick comparison showed I’d save around 100 or so grams a wheel, and if you’re trying to go light, that is not an insignificant reduction.

79pmooney

Quality tubulars have the ride described as the "magic carpet". Nowadays it is not hard to get Vittoria Corsa G+/G2.0 tubulars that are that tire and made of better materials than existed years ago and with workmanship that is outstanding. Gluing is still gluing but now there are tapes that are very high quality and make mounting tubulars cleanly and as perfectly as that tire's workmanship allows easily.

I rode tubulars 25 years, took a 25 year break and went back 2 years ago. I'm loving being back. (Now, my life is currently considerably more comfortable than it was back then and riding high quality and not cheap tires is not a big deal for me. I'm also getting fewer flats than I have in ages on the same roads. I do add an ounce of Orange Seal per tire and top off about every 4 months or so. When I have collected enough flatted tires I will send them off to be patched by a pro. Yeah, I used to patch them myself but several of the steps take hand strength these arthritic hands no longer have and as I said above, I simply don't have to.)

Mountain descents and safety - if the tubulars are properly glued or taped, you can hit stuff and do real damage to the old, very light aluminum rims without the tires caring. I've bumped home on inch deep dents a few times without the tire flatting or caring. (Bottomless potholes on Boston's winter streets, hiding in puddles.) Went 2 feet airborne on a frost heave descending Vermont's Smuggler's Notch on 250g front and 290g rear rims at 50+ mph. Those tires/wheels came through unscathed. The tires were 250g Clement Setas. In those days, no one (that I knew) weighed wheels. We went by rim weight. Those wheels were not heavy despite being 36 spoke and regular Campy NR hubs or equivalent.

I went to tubulars for peace of mind, especially on fast descents on roads I don't know. Folk have been riding crazy descents forever on tubulars. With good tubulars and good glue jobs, without issues. Now, I'd have second thoughts about light CF. That damage from a hard, high speed hit might be a fracture that could cut the tire. Or break, not leaving a (sorta) round "wheel". Old school shallow aluminum rims, even very light ones, stayed "wheel-like" through pretty amazing hits.

And last - flats. I'm 70. I've done my adventures. I try to keep "epic" in my past. So I ride with two Rally spares, a 2oz bottle of Stan's (to be refilled with Orange Seal) and a roll of rim tape. Belt and suspenders. (The Orlieb saddle bag 2 fits all that nicely.) Rode home twice on the Rally and on the old glue before I started using the sealant. I'm not recalling any flats since except blowing out a tired Veloflex. (Veloflez - too light to be a regular non-event tire and failed like a race tire subjected to regular use. The Vittorias don't have quite the "there's nothing there" ride but tolerate road abuse very well. Also considerably less exciting to ride flat. That Veloflex - shades of flatting silks back in the day. Not a whole lotta fabric or anything else between the rim and the road.)

I never had any desire to play the tubeless game so I do not offer this as a comparison. Just as my experience. And as a very happy camper.

PeteHski

+1 on the ultra-light rims.
Not worth the risk when descending mountains, especially when not even racing.

I would go tubeless and probably with liners for added safety, but that’s just a personal choice. Tubeless will be more future-proof with tyre choice if that matters to you.

Dave Mayer

Low weight: tubulars obviously. It is not possible to build clinchers (tubeless or otherwise) that are lighter or stronger than tubulars using the same materials and designing for the same wheel strength. Look at the tubular rim profile: it is perfect; no fragile or heavy 'hooks' or protrusions required to hold the tire on. Smooth edges that avoid pinch flats.

You are going to save 100 grams per wheel with tubulars, again, all things being equal. Plus you won't get pinch flats, you can run your tires at pretty much any pressure, and you won't crush the fragile rim hooks when you run over something. But the biggest advantage to tubulars is that when you suddenly flat, tubulars are a hell of a lot less scary. I've had many blowouts on both, and the tubular blowouts have been calm and controlled, whereas the clincher blowouts have all been terrifying, and tested decades of bike handling skills, sometimes not successfully.

If you want sealant, then you can inject sealant in tubulars. Remove the valve cores and inject 20cc. There: as much flat resistance as tubeless.

Koyote

When even the pro peloton is leaving tubulars behind, leave it to the bf Old Guard to advocate them...And advocate them to a recreational rider, which is even sillier.

PeteHski

I think the tubular "safety" argument was more valid when everyone was running 100+ psi narrow tyres. Running modern tubeless at 60 psi on 24 mm internal rims with sealant and liners is safe enough. Whether people like it or not, tubulars are heading for extinction or at best a niche product with no further investment.

Aardwolf

I'm another fan of tubulars (since 2 years back).
I've only had 3 flats that made me walk home (London riding so not an issue).

1st) After 150 miles front flat, did some research and decident sealant was what I needed so got some Orange Seal.
Tyre fixed in 10 mins.

2nd) After 1 year front and rear flats about 1 week apart - apparently 1oz of Orange Seal lasts about 1 year,
They say top it up every 3 months, which is what I'm doing now.

So 2,800 miles and walked home 3 times, but all my own fault.

Got white spray off the front wheel 2 weeks back, stopped and removed the glass shard, spun the wheel - fixed.
Using Vittoria Rubino 28mm which I think is roughly speaking the slightly cheaper butyl version of Corsa.

Koyote

Do you realize that you'd get the same flat resistance by running sealant in tubeless tires?

Aardwolf

That's probably true, but I've never tried tubeless so I can't comment.
I was just giving my experience of tubular.

zandoval 

You can get really carried away stressing of weight. Some people have just got to have a lighter bike. My suggestion would be to concentrate on improving your ride and not just getting your weight down.

Do note that having two wheel sets for the same bike is like having two bikes in one. I used to love my tubular wheels and in comparison to my old road bikes what I ride now is ridiculous. But I do enjoy my rides and often even more now.

For me its much easier to cut a few pounds off my body then to cut a few grams off my bike...

terrymorse 

As a has-been climber and a committed weight weenie, I'm all about saving grams where I can.

But I'm never going back to the expense and hassle of tubulars, not for a couple hundred grams. Not even for an event-only wheelset.

Dave Mayer

A lot of the posters in this forum have no experience with tubulars or road riding, so some remedial education is required. And a lot come recently from mountain biking backgrounds, so think that inappropriate, heavy and slow bike features such as disc brakes, suspension elements and fat tires are desirable on road bikes. And that a 20 pound bike road is 'light'; it is not and a huge handicap with things get steep.

Again, the OP wants a bike that is light and climbs, and not for jumping curbs or riding gravel.

Here is a brief chronology of how the sorry bike industry arrived at tubeless and hookless for the road:

1. 20 years ago tubulars completely dominated all aspects of competitive cycling, even MTB.
2. Tubulars are a hard sell to weekend warriors and platinum-card yuppies, due to the messy gluing thing.
3. A concerted effect is made to lighten up clinchers, yet clinchers suffer due to an insurmountable weight, fragility and safety handicap. It is not the tires, but the rims; the clincher rim profile is simply inferior. Plus the sharp rim hooks cause pinch flats, requiring high inflation pressures.
4. In order to make clinchers more pinch-flat resistant and comfortable, higher-volume tires become more common. Of course, larger tires are heavier, less aero, and feature higher rolling resistance.
5. Pinch flats are still a problem: so tubeless is the next development. Makes sense on an MTB, but on road bikes on first-world pavement?
6. Clincher rims are still too heavy to be competitive. So next development is reducing the size of the rim ‘hooks’, hence ‘hookless’. Of course the huge handicap here is that you are constrained to a very narrow range of tires and low pressures. Big bonus to the industry is that hookless is cheaper to manufacture.
7. Safety: clinchers (tubeless or otherwise) are still terrifying in a sudden blowout, so the next plan is to install a foamy pool noodle inside the tire. Yes, I’m serious here. To overcome the inherent safety disadvantage of clinchers, you need to install lots of messy sealant that dries out every few months plus a pool noodle.

Summary: the bike industry is turning itself inside-out with absurd developments to try and get close to the inherent weight, strength and safety advantages of tubulars. I feel sorry for the poor-team pros who are forced to ride on this stuff, or even worse the mechanics forced to deal with these kludgy fixes.

For those pros whose results matter and are not just disposable domestiques or riding for marketing, you’ll be on tubulars. Stealth relabeled to not piss off your sponsors.

KJ43

It's not an either tubed or tubeless decision here imo. Just get a tubeless compatible hooked rim wheelset. You can still ride with tube if you want and also have the option to go tubeless. < 1,000g is something I would never do personally but we all need/want/have opinions on what will work for us.

I have two wheelsets from Lightbicycle, one based on the WR38 for my gravel bike and one based on the AR375 for my road bike. Both 24 spoked with DT Swiss 240 exp hubs in the ballpark of 1,400g in weight. I got tired of messing around with the higher pressures (only 60psi) for tubeless on my road bike and the psi drop overnight and as an experiment started using 28mm Grand Prix 5000 S TR's with latex tubes. That combo had a great ride feel though the pressure drop overnight was pretty much the same as running them tubeless so that was a wash.

The page for the AR25 rims even states: "The rims are designed tubeless-ready: compatible with both tubed and tubeless setups."

tomato coupe

Which is why no one will ever win a major bike race on clinchers ... oh, wait.

terrymorse 

Try replacing your latex tube with TPU. I made the switch this year. Similar ride quality and rolling resistance, lighter, doesn't lose pressure as quickly.

Nonsense.

Trakhak

Most of the people in this thread who are suggesting that tubulars are more trouble than they're worth are speaking from experience. More than yours, in some cases. (I rode tubulars exclusively from 1964 until the early '90s.)