Carl Fogel writes:

Who still rides tubular tires, and why?

I stopped in a bike shop yesterday. I asked the owner what they use
in track racing. I trust he knows. I asked specifically about tires
and pedals. He said they use special clipless pedals and clincher
tires.

If clincher tires are good enough for track racers, I can't think
of a practical purpose for tubulars any more.

Most of the Tour de France is ridden on tubulars.

This is often claimed but I haven't seen evidence of that among the
professional racers in similar events that I had the opportunity to
inspect. I have not seen TdF bicycles at close enough range to
determine what sort of tires they had.

Because it's glued to the rim, you can continue riding a flat
tubular while waiting for the support car and mechanic to rush up
and slap in a new wheel. (A flat clincher is much harder to ride.)

I don't believe you are speaking from experience. I have ridden many
miles on both flat tubulars and clinchers, on pavement and dirt roads,
and found there to be no significant difference. I believe this story
is propagated from hearsay.

You also expect to have fewer impact flats, even at lower and more
comfortable pressures, because the tubular tire and rim don't tend
to pinch things like a clincher rim. Pros like the idea of a more
comfortable, more reliable tire, and they have someone else to take
care of gluing up a dozen spare wheels.

The lower pinch flat rate that some tubular tires have is achieved by
the use of thin latex tubes, thin latex tubes having many times the
stretch limit before perforation than butyl tubes. So if you were to
hammer on a tube inside a tire casing lying on a smooth surface, it
would take several times the force to perforate the latex tube. It
has nothing to do with the rim; the rim never contacting the tube that
lies inside the tire casing.

The term "snake bite" flat originated at my Wednesday tubular repair
sessions in the1960's and -70's because the holes were so small, the
second on often invisible without inflation that pinch flats were
scrutinized for the second "snake bite" hole... before patching and
sewing the tire casing only to fins a slower leak at the same
location.

People also talk about handling, weight, rolling resistance, and
other somewhat dubious matters, but fewer flats, more comfortable
pressures, and the ability to keep going when flats do occur seem to
be the practical reasons.

This sounds much like the leg shaving excuse where riders claim they
do it for crashing to prevent subsequent hair entrapment in their
precious bodily fluids.

Of course, outside such races, tubulars are popular for reasons of
tradition, fashion, and the love of fooling with sticky, tricky
stuff.

That can be reduced to "me-too", the pros do it.

Jobst Brandt