wrote:
Carl Fogel writes:

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.

The last seven Tours de France were won on tubular tires, and the guy
who won never suffered a flat tire during the race.

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.

In my experience, a deflated, beaded tire is more likely to separate
from the rim that one which is cemented on.

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.

I have been riding tubulars exclusively for over a decade, and I have
never suffered a pinch flat, even at pressures as low as 90 psi. Prior
to that, while riding clinchers, pinch flats were a common occurence,
even at higher inflation pressures. And latex inner tubes, the few
times that I was foolish enough to buy them, were the worst. They
wouldn't just puncture, they would rip apart.

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.

Are you disputing that, too? There is little doubt that it is easier to
deal with cleaning and bandaging a clean-shaven wound, than one that is
mattted with thick hair. Having smooth legs also facilitates massage.