Russell Seaton writes:

If you screw up gluing your tires on and get a bunch of glue on
your tire sidewalls, is there any easy way to get this off?

Your rim glue should be dry by the time you install the tire so it
shouldn't "get all over the place". Road glues are tacky when dry
and are designed to accept a spare tire on the road if you get a
flat.

I always learned to put on tubulars by putting a couple layers of
glue on the rim and letting them dry. And a layer on the tire and
letting it dry. Then putting a fresh layer on the rim and putting
the tire on before it dries.

I don't know what type of base tape your tubulars have but dry tape
(bare cloth) was meant for track glue and needs to be coated.
Rubberized base tape doesn't need any prep to be seated on road glue
because that glue is semi mobile even when dried tacky.

Now you're saying to just put the glue on and let it dry completely,
since it dries tacky, before doing anything. Hmmmmmm.

Don't worry, it will conform to the base tape and stick well enough.
The real tire retention is inflation constriction. This was learned
by descending with riders who had changes to a spare tire that had no
glue on it while the remains on the rim were sparse. When we got home
and pulled off the tire, it was loose and did not stick. This
happened a couple of times showing that hard cornering does not roll
at tire, lift off in cornering and subsequent side impact does.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/m...-tubulars.html
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/tubular-repair.html