References on aging tubulars

[roman meal]

Not to start a flame war here, but where could I find any references or evidence that it makes sense to age your tubulars a bit before use? If it is recommended, how should you go about doing this? I did a bit of a Google search , and Jobst brant was saying that it was simply a myth, designed to prop up tubular sales in the winter, and if you had to store them, but them in an airtight bag in the freezer. When the days get dark early, I begin to wonder about Dugast tubulars. Yes, that's weird, but what about this aging and stretching stuff?

:confused:

[e-RICHIE]

Not to start a flame war here, but where could I find any references or evidence that it makes sense to age your tubulars a bit before use? If it is recommended, how should you go about doing this? I did a bit of a Google search , and Jobst brant was saying that it was simply a myth, designed to prop up tubular sales in the winter, and if you had to store them, but them in an airtight bag in the freezer. When the days get dark early, I begin to wonder about Dugast tubulars. Yes, that's weird, but what about this aging and stretching stuff?

:confused:

i think it's a myth. stocking them is one thing.
saving them for the right dinner is another. i
would keep them out of daylight, on clean rims,
and inflated at least 50psi.

[Serpico]

Humidor, next to the Cohibas and Cristall.


http://img.buzznet.com/assets/users9/ziggurat/default/msg-1129588327-2.jpg

[e-RICHIE]

humidor

you mean here?

[dirtdigger88]

I keep mine in the basement with the dead bodies. . .

did I say that out loud???


never mind

Jason

[Fixed]

bro it's best to bury them under a full moon lay a small amount of garlic with them dig them up after fortnight play some rossini for them rotate rebury dig em up after a fortnight and your good to go at least that's what i do cheers :beer:

[dgauthier]

Now, what about that "Chasing Lance" episode last summer, where one of the Discovery (then U.S. postal) mechanics took the camera crew down into a cellar to show how they age all the team's tubulars?

The tires were aged for years, if I recall correctly, in a cool dark place. The mechanic went so far as to compare an "aged" tubular with a new one, remarking on how soft the "aged" tubular was in comparison. I believe he claimed this reduced the incidence of flats.

Is the Discovery team's mechanic imagining all this?

[Fixed]

bro it has to do with alchemy i.m.h.o. cheers

[roman meal]

Now, what about that "Chasing Lance" episode last summer, where one of the Discovery (then U.S. postal) mechanics took the camera crew down into a cellar to show how they age all the team's tubulars?

The tires were aged for years, if I recall correctly, in a cool dark place. The mechanic went so far as to compare an "aged" tubular with a new one, remarking on how soft the "aged" tubular was in comparison. I believe he claimed this reduced the incidence of flats.

Is the Discovery team's mechanic imagining all this?


Exactly! What I want to know is, what is he thinking?
(a) Did a marketing trick simply become so enshrined in legend and tradition that he is actually convincing himself that there is a difference (the tubular is softer) or,
(b) are the tubulars actually better, or softer, or
(c) has he sniffed too much Tubasti?

It seems like rumor has a tendency to fester into fact. We all know that steel frames get soft with age; you have to replace them to get that snap back. :cool:

[ada@prorider.or]

well aging in no myth
its done when the tubulars made out of the old cotton case tread

now these days with modern fibers is not neccesry anymore


due to the high quality of fibers
cees

[e-RICHIE]

Exactly! What I want to know is, what is he thinking?
(a) Did a marketing trick simply become so enshrined in legend and tradition that he is actually convincing himself that there is a difference (the tubular is softer) or,
(b) are the tubulars actually better, or softer, or
(c) has he sniffed too much Tubasti?

It seems like rumor has a tendency to fester into fact. We all know that steel frames get soft with age; you have to replace them to get that snap back. :cool:


that's the thing here.
julian devries was just doing that old wive's tale stuff
re the tires. it was a tale "back then" and it was a tale
when the camera followed him around this summer.
it's a great story and all - but it's not rooted in fact
imho bro' cheers :beer:

[Serpico]

bro it's best to bury them under a full moon lay a small amount of garlic with them dig them up after fortnight play some rossini for them rotate rebury dig em up after a fortnight and your good to go at least that's what i do cheers :beer:

lol

[Serpico]

yeah, I saw the discovery episode you speak of

look at all the rituals baseball players go through, who cares if it's true or not--but if he'd used an unaged tub and it flatted, well that would probably make a believer out of anyone

sports is the most mysticism-infused profession there is, some team last week: "I don't know how to explain it--he's hit that shot all season, but he missed this time and we got lucky"

some things can't be explained, if tubs in the cellar make you more confident or help you sleep at night, why not? but trying to quantify that assurance is impossible


^^^imho

[jerk]

if its a tire with a silk or cotton casing it does make them a little more supple. for all the new garbage out there it doesn't matter one bit.

jerk

[11.4]

According to Andre Dugast, it has to do both with fiber and whether the rubber is vulcanized to the casing. Natural fibers absorb volatile compounds from the fresh rubber, and the tread itself (if not vulcanized) is a colloidal suspension of rubber in a fairly thick, slow-to-evaporate, base. The fibers need to evaporate the VOC's from the rubber, which can occur in a matter of a month or two in proper conditions with cotton. With silk, the release is supposedly slower, on the order of several months. With either fabric, when the fibers aren't swollen and tightly packed, they can flex and move independently of each other, so the tire feels more supple overall and is more resistant to damage. The tread, however, can sometimes need a couple years or more to evaporate the base properly (if vulcanized, the heat of the process accomplishes most of this right away, and the rubbers used in vulcanizing are a different composition anyway). When that's happened, the tread is slightly harder, more cut resistant, and every so slightly stiffer. The slight stiffness in the tread is more than offset by the improved suppleness in the casing, and you get better cut resistance, better wear, and a bit better wet-weather adhesion by aging the tread.

The head mechanic at the Gent six-day track last winter told me that he believes these measures are important on a limited number of tires, including Dugast track tires, Dugast re-caps (casings on which Dugast has glued treads stripped from other tires, a custom provision offered to elite riders), and Conti Olympics and Sonderclasses. He didn't think that most other track tires or any currently manufactured road tires saw much benefit from these practices. He had some pink Dugast silks and some black file tread Dugast cotton track tires that had been stored for about 2 years (dark, dry, lightly inflated on rims for a month and then in hanks in a closet) and the difference from new tires was quite pronounced. He said the new pink Dugasts would rub bald spots almost immediately and would also slip on decals on the track surface, while the aged ones would last through a week of specialty events and wouldn't slip.

I've had the same kind of experience with Conti Olympics and Dugast track cottons. And when I still had old Clement silk tubulars around, it seemed to help with them as well. So I'll have to disappoint the a__l-retentive retired engineers on this forum by not having some analytic test results to demonstrate (which may not really demonstrate what's really relevant anyway), but some folks who live with high quality tires have some rational and experienced views on the subject. It's up to you whether you want to age tires. If you can afford a pile of really high-end tires, the decision is up to you. Everyone else, it's most likely irrelevant.

[roman meal]

This was a compelling reply. So Discovery rode something other then Hutchison tubulars, I gather.

[chrisroph]

I once saw ted ernst hand ralph therrio a pair of clement strada 66's, a very nice cotton tire with herring bone tread, that ted had brought up from the basement with a raising of theh eyebrows that said this is the good stuff. Ralph put one in his mouth and bit down pretty hard on the tread. He then looked at it and noticed that there weren't any prominent bite marks. He smiled and ted smiled back. They were perfect.

[e-RICHIE]

I once saw ted ernst hand ralph therrio a pair of clement strada 66's, a very nice cotton tire with herring bone tread, that ted had brought up from the basement with a raising of theh eyebrows that said this is the good stuff. Ralph put one in his mouth and bit down pretty hard on the tread. He then looked at it and noticed that there weren't any prominent bite marks. He smiled and ted smiled back. They were perfect.


but_tubulars_from_"then"_were_not_the_synthetic_jobbies_they_are_now.

[jerk]

but_tubulars_from_"then"_were_not_the_synthetic_jobbies_they_are_now.


yeah, what e-richie said which is what the jerk said which is what ada_at_prorider.org said....

baumwolle ist affentitten geil imho.

[e-RICHIE]

yeah, what e-richie said which is what the jerk said which is what ada_at_prorider.org said....

baumwolle ist affentitten geil imho.




the jerk gives good post.

[chrisroph]

agreed boys then and now are different. Thinking more the 66's had a file tread.

[11.4]

I think everyone's saying the same thing -- no need to age Conti Sprinters. But there is still a very limited availability of traditional quality tubulars (the total list is probably Dugast cotton track, Dugast pink silk track, Conti Olympics, Soyo 40A keirin -- now discontinued, and possibly Conti Sonderclasse's, and perhaps you could add some Dugast road silks as well) that benefit from this extra care for the same reason that old Criterium Seta Extra's did. There are a number of people on this forum who enjoy such tires and can maintain a backstock so they can age them if desired. If you're one of those, you're blessed.

[e-RICHIE]

I think everyone's saying the same thing -- no need to age Conti Sprinters. But there is still a very limited availability of traditional quality tubulars (the total list is probably Dugast cotton track, Dugast pink silk track, Conti Olympics, Soyo 40A keirin -- now discontinued, and possibly Conti Sonderclasse's, and perhaps you could add some Dugast road silks as well) that benefit from this extra care for the same reason that old Criterium Seta Extra's did. There are a number of people on this forum who enjoy such tires and can maintain a backstock so they can age them if desired. If you're one of those, you're blessed.


but - it's yet to be quanitified how improved an aged
tire is versus one just manufactured, even "back then".
where is the anecdotal evidence? i used clements exclusively
back in the 70s and always had a stock - but never fretted
or felt at a disadvantage if i used one straight from the
supplier. fwiw, i was either a cotton strada 66 or a silk
campionissimo guy to the core.

[Dave B]

For whatever it is worth, with Discovery/Postal, Julian knows what he is doing.

Lance NEVER had a flat in the Tour.

[e-RICHIE]

For whatever it is worth, with Discovery/Postal, Julian knows what he is doing.

Lance NEVER had a flat in the Tour.

so?
many folks never had a flat in the Tour.
it also helps to have a budget that allows
a deep equipment pool. but did he have
no flats because the tires were aged or
because there were enough supplied by
sponsors so that most were used for a
minimal period of time?

[11.4]

All said and done, tire performance is so dependent on the style, habits, etc. of the individual rider that I'd hesitate to guarantee any benefits of special tubular treatment (or of good tubulars, or of using tubulars at all) to all users. A pro rider, to the comment above, doesn't survive if he flats a lot, so natural selection got rid of those riders who seem to puncture on every training ride or fall on a wet corner every month or so. I'm not sure that any comparison in this matter of our needs to the pro peleton has any real relevance beyond the "they do it and I want to do like they do" argument.

For a rider to really notice the differences in tire performance, they need already to have superb balance and race hard so that they are testing the tire at the limits where these arcane treatments pay any benefit. And they need to be blessed (if that's what it is) with a low incidence of flats. It's just like having a rider with mediocre balance on a superb custom frame -- he'll never actually feel what makes that frame better for him. I'm not out to be snobbish here -- it's just that tire aging probably doesn't have any benefit for any application other than serious racing on ultra-premium tubulars (which perhaps makes it more of a track issue than a road one). A Petacchi coming out of a last hard turn before a sprint in a hard rainstorm will undoubtedly discern tire performance issues that I'll never see. So will an elite madison team in a UCI event. I age my best track tires mostly because I get them in batches once I've found some I like, and proper treatment helps protect them from deterioration.

[Fixed]

bro no flat maybe a new tire everyday helps cheers :beer: lance lance lance most of us admire or respect what he been through .hey bros don't get mad i liked the way that gritty lemond rode for an american i.m.h.o. .cheers :beer:

[Ken Lehner]

For whatever it is worth, with Discovery/Postal, Julian knows what he is doing.

Lance NEVER had a flat in the Tour.

Wrong. You can look it up (if you want).

[Ken Lehner]

When that's happened, the tread is slightly harder, more cut resistant, and every so slightly stiffer. The slight stiffness in the tread is more than offset by the improved suppleness in the casing, and you get better cut resistance, better wear, and a bit better wet-weather adhesion by aging the tread.

Thereby drastically increasing the rolling resistance, making the tire even slower than typical tubulars (and slower than good clinchers, since much of tubular's RR is from the glue).

[ada@prorider.or]

For whatever it is worth, with Discovery/Postal, Julian knows what he is doing.

Lance NEVER had a flat in the Tour.

i have seen lance flatted a view time's

who is saying this
julien came later to lance
soo how does he know?

[Ken Lehner]

For whatever it is worth, with Discovery/Postal, Julian knows what he is doing.

Lance NEVER had a flat in the Tour.

So you don't have to look it up:

1999, Stage 20 (final stage):

(from cyclingnews.com (http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/1999/tour99/stage20report.html))

"There was some feigned excitement by commentators when Lance Armstrong punctured at km 55. He was delayed for a short time but was never challenged and regained contact with the complete peloton quickly."