Latex on tubular base tape

Russell Seaton1 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.

Responding to the person who stated this. Clinchers may be used at
the local velodrome by some. But at the upper levels, tubulars are
used on the track. If you look at the wheels the pros use, Mavic
disks and Campagnolo Ghibli disks, Campagnolo Pista wheels, Mavic 5
spoke wheels, these ONLY come in tubular. No clincher verison of
these track wheels exist in the world. There is no question about
whether these riders are using tubular or clincher.

Do a Google search for the Mavic and Campagnolo web sites and you can
determine for yourself that the disk wheels and track wheels are
only available in tubular.

Go over to the www.cyclingnews.com website for pictures of various
professional track events around the world and look at the wheels
being used.

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.

www.cyclingnews.com website has pictures of bikes used in the Tour
de France. And other professional races. I guess one could always
claim the bikes in the pictures are not really the ones being ridden
during the race itself and the tubular wheels shown in the picture
are changed out for the superior clinchers before the race.

I see you want I should do a web search to prove your point. Please
give a URL that clearly shows the tubular tire being used by "most"
TdF riders. That tubulars are used is not contested, only that they
are used commonly by most riders.

In many of the Tour and other race pictures you see riders using
Campagnolo Bora wheels, Lightweight wheels, ADA wheels, etc. These are
all carbon wheels ONLY available in tubular. There is no clincher
version of these wheels. How can the racers in the Tour pictures not
be riding tubulars?

There is no doubt that there is a weight advantage but for overall
reliability on rough roads and steep descents, they present problems.

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.

My Continental Sprinter tubulars have butyl tubes. I suffered very few
if any pinch flats with them. I have pinch flatted clinchers with
butyl tubes. The tubulars were ridden at lower pressure too.

Then it's not the tubulars that do that. I went through the
transition from latex to butyl tubes in tubulars and the increase in
snake bites was strikingly apparent.

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.

No personal experience, but I have heard getting a massage on smooth
hairless skin is preferable to hairy skin. I believe professional
racers get massages quite frequently.

In that case, why do you persist in repeating this myth?

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

I don't want to step in the middle of this...I ride clinchers, but I
remember the sweet feel of my gl-330's w/ vittora criteriums. I still
have the wheels, I just need to rebuild 'em with a new hub....but I
digress.

I see you want I should do a web search to prove your point. Please
give a URL that clearly shows the tubular tire being used by "most"
TdF riders.
Some of these folks clearly have a 'dog in the hunt,' but FWIW, at
http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/tec...es/8566.0.html
Zinn interviews a few people who estimate 80% or more use tubulars at
the Tour.

returns to anonymity

On 1 Aug 2005 17:58:37 -0700, "Matt"
wrote:

I don't want to step in the middle of this...I ride clinchers, but I
remember the sweet feel of my gl-330's w/ vittora criteriums.

Saying you don't want to step into the middle of it and then claiming
some sort of special feel for tubulars is actually stepping in the
middle of it. Was the difference the weight of the rims or some
special "tubular feel" you think you can feel?

JT

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I'm not claiming any superiority either way. Back then (~1990) I was
racing and thought I 'needed' to have tubies-that's what all the other
racers had. The first ride that I had on 'em, I must've stopped and
checked to make sure that they weren't flat at least 5 times. They just
rode smoother. The were the same width, and at the same pressure as my
clinchers. However, IIRC, I was riding some really cheap clinchers at
the time. The wheels were (and still are) definitely quite light--32h
gl-330's w/ 15/16 spokes & alloy nipples. (Don't flame me--I didn't
know any better!)

I claim no empircally demonstrable superiority either way. Maybe it was
snob appeal. Maybe there was a difference. Maybe its like "Mom's
cooking"--nostalgia has made the memories better than the facts.

Oh well...
Matt.

Matt Roberts writes:

I don't want to step in the middle of this...I ride clinchers, but I
remember the sweet feel of my gl-330's w/ vittora criteriums. I
still have the wheels, I just need to rebuild 'em with a new
hub....but I digress.

I see you want I should do a web search to prove your point.
Please give a URL that clearly shows the tubular tire being used
by "most" TdF riders.

Some of these folks clearly have a 'dog in the hunt,' but FWIW, at
http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/tec...es/8566.0.html Zinn
interviews a few people who estimate 80% or more use tubulars at the
Tour.

I see no pictures that show tubulars. Zinn's line is the same one
repeated all over the place.

Jobst Brandt

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 23:48:43 GMT,
wrote:

Mike Krueger40 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.

So what? On most of my trips in the Alps that cover about the same
distance and more climbing than the TdF . . .

Dear Jobst,

Reporters who cover the Tour routinely comment that tubulars
are the overwhelming favorite, so I'll believe them--they
saw the tires that you didn't.

As for comparing your trips to the Tour, please tell us your
average speed. Was it around 27 mph for 2100 miles? Did you
average 34 mph on the first day?

If kinetic energy affects impact flats, would you predict
that professionals racing through towns on blocked-off roads
in tight pelotons with obvious visibility and maneuvering
problems might worry more about impact flats than retired
bicycle tourists enjoying wonderful visibility on Alpine
passes?

Carl Fogel

wrote:

Lots snipped. Don't wrestle with this pig(the thread Jobst, not you
personally)
European racing is all about myth and lore and in Jobst's view all
should ride on Avocet clinchers(28c), have hairly legs(who cares about
massage or what they do in an emergency room with bad scapes(hint-shave
ya)),use too big steel frames with downtube shifters. Tubies are for
geeks, along with tying and soldering and carbon wheels.

Jobst Brandt is the one true source and all the rest of us that
actually see this stuff in a bike shop are full of ****e...

wrote:
Matt Roberts writes:

I don't want to step in the middle of this...I ride clinchers, but I
remember the sweet feel of my gl-330's w/ vittora criteriums. I
still have the wheels, I just need to rebuild 'em with a new
hub....but I digress.

I see you want I should do a web search to prove your point.
Please give a URL that clearly shows the tubular tire being used
by "most" TdF riders.

Some of these folks clearly have a 'dog in the hunt,' but FWIW, at
http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/tec...es/8566.0.html Zinn
interviews a few people who estimate 80% or more use tubulars at the
Tour.

I see no pictures that show tubulars. Zinn's line is the same one
repeated all over the place.

Jobst Brandt

Holy crap Jobst, he was there as well as a few others from VN, that
actually saw that most of the bicycles had carbon and aluminum rims and
tubulars. The only guys using clinchers were those who are sponsored to
ride them.

Remember Michelin tubulars, care to guess why they made them in the
first place?

Instead of wandering around on the 'net', since you are retired, why
not spend some time at the euro races and then some time in a local
bike shop. I know of a couple in your area that would welcome your
visit.

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.

So what? On most of my trips in the Alps that cover about the same
distance and more climbing than the TdF, I never pump my clincher
tires for the distance. What does that prove other than that the
tubes do not leak down as fast as the Clement Tubulars with latex
tubes that I used to ride on these tours, pumping them up daily.

http://tinyurl.com/adls

Reporters who cover the Tour routinely comment that tubulars are the
overwhelming favorite, so I'll believe them--they saw the tires that
you didn't.

And Phil Ligget routinely described TdF riders descending the 8% grade
of the Galibier Pass going 60mph, a number that gets quoted routinely.
That does not make it happen.

As for comparing your trips to the Tour, please tell us your average
speed. Was it around 27 mph for 2100 miles? Did you average 34 mph
on the first day?

Tires, Carl, tires and miles. On the other hand get off your endless
pursuit of irrelevant minutia.

If kinetic energy affects impact flats, would you predict that
professionals racing through towns on blocked-off roads in tight
pelotons with obvious visibility and maneuvering problems might
worry more about impact flats than retired bicycle tourists enjoying
wonderful visibility on Alpine passes?

You have a vivid imagination of how races are won and what causes
flats. TdF top speeds are not higher than those of active touring but
are maintained over long distances. The threat of punctures is no
larger than for non-professional riders. In fact, from what we read
here, wreck.bike riders get more flats than TdF riders and commiserate
about it plenty.

Jobst Brandt

"Qui si parla Campagnolo" wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:

Lots snipped. Don't wrestle with this pig(the thread Jobst, not you
personally)
European racing is all about myth and lore and in Jobst's view all
should ride on Avocet clinchers(28c), have hairly legs(who cares about
massage or what they do in an emergency room with bad scapes(hint-shave
ya)),use too big steel frames with downtube shifters. Tubies are for
geeks, along with tying and soldering and carbon wheels.

Jobst Brandt is the one true source and all the rest of us that
actually see this stuff in a bike shop are full of ****e...


Doesn't mean we have to use it.
Peter, you, Jobst Brandt, and Sheldon Brown have made great contributions
to this group.
The other day we were sitting around after a ride and the question came up;
who is the most influential
person in your cycling career? Of course the Tour de France riders came up,
Eddy Merckx, Greg
LeMond, Lance Armstrong, but when it was my turn, I said it was Jobst
Brandt.

I came to this newsgroup years ago because I thought I could learn a thing
or two about maintaining my bike, this
was back when VM computers were in style. When I saw the name Jobst Brandt
posting, I knew it was the author of the Bicycle Wheel. I thought gosh, this
is a goldmine, giving free advice on how to maintain my bike. I figured
Brandt would never lead a cyclist in the wrong direction, so I started using
some his methods like cleaning the chain, brakepad suggestion, headset and
bottom bracket adjustments. Before I knew it, I was maintaining my own bike,
and enjoying riding the bike.

This newsgroup has changed much since then...more finger pointing, he said
she said, which I try to bypass as much as possible. I don't duck into this
group as often as I have in the past, but I'm still enjoying cycling,
probably more than ever.
-tom