Dave Mayer

Riding solo or at the head of the group? Then aero. Deepish section wheels with narrow high-pressure tires.

Value comfort over speed? Then fat tires (>25mm) at low pressures.

Riding in a fast aggressive group over terrain that includes climbing and hard accelerations out of the corners? Then the lowest rotational mass possible: carbon tubulars with narrow high-pressure tires. Being able to hang onto wheels during a hard acceleration will make the difference between standard suffering, and what could be an hour or more of immense suffering of trying to reconnect with the pack.

PeteHski

This is not what many of the pro teams are doing. The classics are now dominated by wider, tubeless tyres and the TDF is heading that way too. Comfort and speed are not mutually exclusive and quite the contrary on less than ideal road surfaces. Tubulars make zero sense for every day riding and are now unnecessary for serious competition.

JohnDThompson 

Decide based on your riding style. The advantages of light weight apply at all speeds; those of aerodynamics taper off at low speed. If you're a competitive rider, aerodynamics may win out. If you're a recreational rider, light weight may win.

Fredo76

I guess I ain't got none of that 'sense' stuff...


Looking Forward With Tubulars

I'll be OK though.

Dave Mayer

The (elite-level) teams are actually riding tubulars. Often relabeled. Tubeless has 3 insurmountable disadvantages for performance riding:

• Higher rim weights than tubular rims. This is inherent to the cross-section of the rim: clincher/tubeless rims simply require more material.
• The inability to run at high pressures (yes, higher pressures deliver lower rolling resistance)
• Far greater safety risks in the event of a sudden deflation. On tubulars, the tire stays stuck tight to the rim, and you can ride it for a considerable distance.

Tubeless is a good choice for sponsor marketing campaigns, or for bikes on the roof racks of the team cars, or for the domestiques on flat inconsequential stages.

tomato coupe

Why would a pro team put their domestiques on tubeless only during flat stages and put tubeless on the backup bikes?

Eric F 

Got any examples of this actually being a thing?

What I'm seeing from sources like GCN's review of bikes ridden by the World Tour teams at the Tour Down Under, more teams are running tubeless, and fewer are running tubulars. This has been trending this way for a few years, and is continuing to do so. If you have a source that has conflicting information, I would be curious to see it.

Dave Mayer

Because the handicapped performance of these bikes doesn't matter. It does matter is the team leader has to climb 10 miles of steep switchbacks. That is when you use the sub-1,200 g low profile tubular wheels.

Eric F 

So a team will put it's non-leader riders on bikes that make it more difficult for them to do their job helping the leader as effectively as possible? That doesn't make much sense at all.

Do you have a source for this?

terrymorse 

Weight is a non-issue for UCI racers, as their bikes must stay above the UCI limit.

Clinchers can be inflated to optimal pressure. Tubeless tires have very low rolling resitance. And very high pressure (110+ psi) is a disadvantage, as it produce higher rolling resistance on real surfaces. Tubulars offer zero rolling resistance advantage over clinchers.

tomato coupe

So, these teams willingly throw away performance when better tires are at hand? Sure thing dude.

PeteHski

This ^ is complete bs, but not surprising from this guy.

Dave Mayer

Weight is the #1 performance issue, particularly rotating mass. If you have to stick to some arbitrary UCI weight limit, then you'll make every effort to move mass from the wheels/tires to the frame and components. Tubeless/clinchers are inherently heavier than tubulars due to the inferior rim profile.

Rolling resistance: an inconsequential factor. The differences in rolling resistance between (good) tires of any kind is a handful of watts, tiny compared to wind resistance. And for the team leaders, wind resistance doesn't matter as 95% of the time, as they are buried in the pack.

The bicycle trades: they exist to help the industry sell expensive bling to dentists.. What are they going to say? Wish I could find the interview with the head of Vittoria, who expressed some frustration that much of the pro peloton is on their latex tube tubular tires, often relabeled.

Maelochs

Ummm .... yes, #1 is true.
#2? Where did you invent all that? Actually Right tire pressure---NOT "higher" pressure--delivers lower rolling resistance. This has been tested and proven a decade ago ... hysteresis eats up energy with really hard tires. A little give rolls more smoothly. And ... who told you tubeless couldn't run high pressures ? Particularly since teams are running 25s and 28s nowadays, and not 23s at 120 psi.
#3 is totally true.

So ... you have documentation for the claim that nobody is riding tubeless except domestiques on flat stages?

By the way, if the bikes on the car have tubeless--- then later in the race if the leader needs a new bike in a hurry to hold his lead---he has to use a bike off the car, which has tubeless, which would--according to you---cost him the race. Not sure I see the logic there.

If you can back up your claims with third-party material, I would appreciate it.

I am only personally involved as a part-time photographer in regional pro-level cycling, so I have no direct experience with what World Tour riders do ... but I watch a lot of cycling on TV and online, and I seem to recall hearing about tams running tubeless .... but that is TV and the Internet .... .... If you have valid documentation showing otherwise, please link it or post it. I would like to know the truth, whatever it is.

tomato coupe

Ummmmmmm … no.

Maelochs

Funny, at pro peleton speeds, the pros seem to think aero is the most important factor.

Ummmm .... okay .... seems to me that any sort of wheel can be made in any shape and that most teams are running much deeper wheels on pretty much all stages .... and even on pure mountain stages, sorry there is no inherent shape benefit to tubular rims over other rim styles. The big benefits with tubeless are lighter weight of the actual tire and the fact that they can be safely ridden flat.

Funny, then, that you quote it as second of the big three reasons tubulars are better.

We all wish you could find this. I am not here to win a debate .... people here will keep fighting even if the topic is "Black is different than white" or "Red bikes are faster." I just want accurate information ... and your hit-or-miss logic and contradictory posts are hard to trust. Please do find those third-party sources.

Eric F 

On a MTB ride recently, grinding my way over a rocky (but not loose) section, I was vividly reminded of how much power can be lost to vertical deflection. I would expect this plays out in a smaller scale on the road as well (real roads, not theoretical pristine surfaces), which is where the advantage of more compliant (larger/lower pressure) tires pays off. There's also the factor of a smoother ride leaving the rider fresher and able to put out more power at the end of a long race/ride. That said, there's obviously a tradeoff where increased weight and/or increased aerodynamic resistance outweigh other gains. The pro peloton seems to think that it's somewhere around 25-28mm.

Atlas Shrugged

So you say rolling resistance is a minor issue because it is only a few watts. Then how do you stand behind the ridiculous premise that the difference between a lightweight, tubeless setup and a comparable tubular setup creates a measurable difference in acceleration? This archaic wives tale was debunked years ago, much like the high pressure is faster tripe. Your comments are like hanging around a Cat 5 criterium race in the mid 70's, listening to the veterans about their so-called speed secrets.

Dave Mayer

Tire rolling resistance test results here:

Part 4B: Rolling Resistance and Impedance – SILCA

Sweet spot is 100-110 psi. We're not talking about a gravel event here, but performance riding on smooth pavement. One of the major benefits of holding a high-level cycling event is that all of the roads around your 'burg get repaved.

Tire rolling resistance data here:

Bicycle Rolling Resistance | Rolling Resistance Tests

For the same tire, the higher the inflation pressure, the lower the rolling resistance, until you hit the hysteresis effects in the reference above. And, for the same tire, using the same construction and materials, a 32mm tire features less rolling resistance than a 23, if inflated to the SAME pressure. The difference is about 3 watts per tires. However, you don't inflate a 32 to 110 psi, you inflate it to 60 psi, which means the fatter tire has a higher RR than the skinny tire inflated to 100 psi.

Tubeless wheel weights. Tubeless is heavier than tubular, due to the inferior rim profile. Tubeless, like all clincher rims, require more rim material, specifically the 2 'hooks' required to hold the tire on the rim. Tubular rims don't need these, so all other things being equal are lighter, and will always be lighter. Show me race-capable set of sub- 1,000g set of tubeless wheels. This is possible with tubular, not with clinchers/tubeless.

Eric F 

Help me understand something...If skinny, high-psi, lightweight, tubular tires are the fastest, why are the riders who get paid the most for being as fast as possible not using this setup? Do you know something they don't know, or is it maybe the other way around?

Maelochs

Keep the story straight from post to post, please.

Ironfish653

Marginal Gains was a false - flag operation.

Explains how Froomie was able to win 4 TdFs on the bounce: making the competition sandbag themselves with heavy aero wheels and slow tubeless tires

RChung

Sometimes threads slow down and you think everything that could be said has been said and then boom! they start up again.

base2 

We went through this already.

957 gram tubeless clincher disc wheelset by Richard Mozzarella, on Flickr

I now also have a 1209 gram 28/24 disc wheelset same as above but made with White Industries hubs.

It's ok to learn new things.

venturi95

^ Cool looking wheels, and mighty light! I'm not trying to start an argument, but do any pro tour teams ride Berd spokes?
The big advantage for sew ups, beside modest weight savings, seems to me to be:
--Smooth pavement. I don't follow professional road cycling, but what little of it I see looks like it likes place on really smooth roads. Skinny, high-pressure tires would be fastest here, as proven by the same experiments as the argument for wide and soft on the rough stuff, no?
--If it is rough, you can imagine being stuck in the middle of the peloton getting dragged over crap pavement at 30 plus m.p.h. I raced in the 1990s and saw clincher flats frequently in that situation. Do modern tubeless rims carrying low pressure tires get beat to failure? I have no idea.
--Want to go aero? Make my deep aero wheels sew-up.
I like my dirt road and MTB tubless set-ups just fine, love them, they're fabulous. I would like to try a modern road tubless set-up, maybe a Go Fund Me account is in order? JK!