My first Tubular Flat...Tubular Rim Clearning

[terrytnt]

Well it finally happened... after many (and I mean over a dozen) years of riding I got my first tubular flat on the road! Knew my luck couldn't hold out. And get a load of this, it was on my son's campus (Univ of Richmond) as I was going out with the Richmond cycle team for a 55 mile ride. And wouldn't you figure, it was from glass on the road... big surprise right. Well I switched out my rear wheel with one of the guys Zipps and completed the 55 mile ride with an average 19.5 mph... pretty darn good for a dad that's 25 years their senior).

My question is about cleaning the rims. What have you folks found that 'cuts' through rim cement when it's time to clean rims before mounting a new sew-up. The old solvent I had used in the past is no longer made and though someone mention Acetone, IT REALLY DIDN'T CUT THROUGH THE GLUE. What have you experienced tubers used?

I'm also curious about when you folks think it's time to strip the rim of previous layers of cement... when you're on the 4 or 5 application???

thanks,

tnt

[Blastinbob]

You have all the luck. I've have put about 400 miles on my tubbies and have had 5 flats.

[terrytnt]

You're right, I have been quite fortunate. Think it's a matter of watching the road like a hawk, used higher quality tubies and lot's of LUCK!

[11.4]

When: I don't remove glue unless it's so thick it compromises the shape of the tire bed, it's contaminated by latex I didn't remove from a base tape, or it's been subject to a lot of rain and/or dirt that has likewise contaminated it. Oh, and if it's not my wheel (which always see the same glue) and it happens to have a different glue, I am likely to remove it (especially with Fast Tack, old red rim cements, or Pastali/Tubasti).

How: Acetone flashes off so fast that it doesn't get a chance to do a good job on current rim cements. On the other hand, it's the safest for carbon rims and the like because it doesn't hang around long enough to soften the resin that holds all the carbon together. There are people who recommend isopropyl alcohol, but I don't see it even begin to work on softening rim cements -- not sure why they recommend it. I tend to use Goof-Off -- it tends to soften stuff pretty effectively and Zipp recommends it for their rims (check one of their technical papers on their web site). It's also marginally less toxic than acetone, toluene, and other solvents that have a great affinity for your liver, kidneys, brain, and eyes.

You probably don't have to remove all the glue -- just the majority of it. When you start using solvents, you pretty much are committing to remove all of it, which isn't usually necessary. So I've become a proponent of hardware methods. My current favorite is a six inch piece of 1/2" galvanized conduit cut with a hacksaw. I put a rubber tip from a crutch over the other end to protect my hand, and use the rough cut end to gouge up the old rim cement. I'll use a chainsaw file to sharpen the edge, filing out the inside edge of the lip, when needed to resharpen the conduit. It hardly costs anything and works pretty well. It needs a bit of effort, but you don't muck up your decals, damage the carbon, or otherwise have a mess to clean up. If the conduit won't remove the cement, I figure it isn't meant to come off.

[catulle]

Now that we are lucky enough to have the expert around, that is Dr. 11.4, I'll ask another related question. Today I struggled for a few hours installing a new 19mm Conti Competition on an Escape rim. After much haggling, mostly centering the tubular properly on the rim, I noticed that once filled with air, the tubular doesn't cover the total surface of the rim. There seems to be some space on both edges of the rim that the tubular doesn't fill.

My main concern, though, is that next on line I have to install some Veloflex Corsa tubulars on some new Reflex rims which tend to run a bit on the wide side. Thus, I wonder if I have to worry about the tubies not spreading fully across the width of the rim.

Thank you in advance for your advice, Dr, 11.4. :beer:

[11.4]

Shucks, Catulle, you shouldn't have any problems. The Escape rim has a fairly shallow tire bed, while a 19 mm Competition has a very rounded underside and a fairly prominent stitching line that tends to lift the tire up and out of a shallow tire bed. It's not a very good match between tire and rim. If you pull the tire off, you'll see it's only adhering in the middle in a narrow line. It may work for training rides, but if you ever start to peel the tire loose on a turn or in a race, it'll just unzip on you.

The Reflex has a fairly deep tire bed, and it's made from a folded extrusion that actually adds an extra raised lip on the edges of the bed. Most tires, even narrow ones, fit reasonably well on a Reflex. And Veloflexes tend to have a shallower profile on the underside and don't have as prominent a stitching line, so they will actually do better on most rims. The only place I'd question a Veloflex Corsa is on a super-narrow rim such as an Araya Aero 4 or a Wolber 18 Aero -- these rims pretty much require 19 mm tires if the tire isn't to overhang the rim by an excessive amount. In short, you should be fine.

[terrytnt]

thanks Dr. 11.4, your comments are most helpful! Confirms what I've done over the years.

[catulle]

You rock, 11.4. Thank you so much for your thorough and insightful response,. I've never been totally pleased with the Escape wheels. They were made by a man in Baltimore who was recommended by a good friend. However, my first problem with those wheels was that I had asked for Campagnolo hubs and got American Classics instead. And the skewers on the AC require to go much tighter than the Campy; as I result upon my first or second ride with them the rear wheel came loose as I got off the saddle on a stop sign and fell right in front of a car. I wasn't run over because Saint Peter doesn't want me around quite yet. Now the issue with the Competition tubulars.

Oh, by the way, although I've never been too crazy about these wheels, I'm attached to them because the man who made them was killed on the road while riding his bicycle. He used to build frames too; including tandems.

I hope everything will go well with the Reflex and the Veloflex, though. So far I've been using Continental glue for my wheels, do you have any suggestions for using on the new wheels?

Again, thank so much for your very helpful response.

[11.4]

Personally I've found the best adhesion and the best quality control in Vittoria Mastik One. I use it both on road rims and on carbon and alloy track wheels, and consistently have better experiences with the Mastik One. Up until about a year ago, Mastik One tended to separate in the tube, leaving a tan sludge and a clear supernatant, neither of which was a particularly effective glue on its own. The formulation doesn't appear to have changed significantly, so I suspect they had problems with storage conditions or inventory aging. Whatever the issue was, now the stuff is consistently high quality and works well. Mavic recommends it for their carbon track wheels, and it's what most of the national track teams use. One thing I've found consistently is that Mastik One needs an extra coat on the rim before the final coat, and it helps to let it dry very well before the tire gets mounted. (These are precautions I recommend for any rim cement, but with Mastik One it pays particular benefits with track wheels where there's more lateral stress on the glue joint. A good glue job just isn't one to be hurried, and the quick jobs that some people advocate may be fine for a touring or easy training ride on tubulars, but doesn't work in a racing context or where you want to know you won't bring others down if you roll a tire.)

The only other adhesive I use these days is Soyo. It's ultra strong -- it takes pliers to remove the tire afterwards -- and really only necessary on track wheels. Soyo rim cement is highly toxic, both to breathe and on your skin, so it mandates working outdoors and with gloves. Frankly, I can get virtually the same bond with careful use of Mastik One, so I'm using Soyo less these days. If you're riding big cross tires at low pressures on narrow carbon rims, Soyo can be beneficial as well.

[catulle]

Personally I've found the best adhesion and the best quality control in Vittoria Mastik One. I use it both on road rims and on carbon and alloy track wheels, and consistently have better experiences with the Mastik One. Up until about a year ago, Mastik One tended to separate in the tube, leaving a tan sludge and a clear supernatant, neither of which was a particularly effective glue on its own. The formulation doesn't appear to have changed significantly, so I suspect they had problems with storage conditions or inventory aging. Whatever the issue was, now the stuff is consistently high quality and works well. Mavic recommends it for their carbon track wheels, and it's what most of the national track teams use. One thing I've found consistently is that Mastik One needs an extra coat on the rim before the final coat, and it helps to let it dry very well before the tire gets mounted. (These are precautions I recommend for any rim cement, but with Mastik One it pays particular benefits with track wheels where there's more lateral stress on the glue joint. A good glue job just isn't one to be hurried, and the quick jobs that some people advocate may be fine for a touring or easy training ride on tubulars, but doesn't work in a racing context or where you want to know you won't bring others down if you roll a tire.) l.

Again, thank you so much. I'll try the Mastik. The Soyo sounds like too much. Besides, I hate it when you take the tubular off the rim and the back tape comes off the tire. Regarding letting the glue dry, I think that's the key for any decent tubular glue job; otherwise, the result is a mess and the bind not so solid. I love the esoteric aspect of tubulars...!! Thank you, Dr. 11.4. :beer:

[Too Tall]

11.4 and C.Natchural - My commuting wheels are infact Velocity Escape and my std. tyre is a Conti Sprinter (22)...perfect fit. I'm thinking you could give those 19mm tyres to a TT rider and get yourself something a bit wider non?

[catulle]

11.4 and C.Natchural - My commuting wheels are infact Velocity Escape and my std. tyre is a Conti Sprinter (22)...perfect fit. I'm thinking you could give those 19mm tyres to a TT rider and get yourself something a bit wider non?


Oui, TT.

[Big Dan]

reflex, sprinters (22) and Conti glue all work well together.......imho
like me eating Doritos with a couple of cold beers for dinner......... :)
carbo-loading yo!!!!!!

[11.4]

On the Conti Sprinter with the Escape rim -- yes, that'd probably be a good match. Basically, rim cement has to have "gap-filling" capability to a certain extent. "Gap-filling" is an actual parameter of adhesives. If you have a precise mating of two surfaces, the last thing you want is anything but adhesive in between, so a glue like Barge cement (or rim cement) isn't appropriate. But when you have an imprecisely mated fabric surface glued to an aluminum or coarse carbon fiber surface, you need good gap-filling capability. Rim cement should do well at mating the minor differences between the Sprinter and the Escape. If you have a deep tire bed on a rim (as on a Reflex, for example), you may not have perfect adhesion in the middle, but you'll be applying strong pressure and getting great adhesion at the edges of the tire bed, which is where it works the best.

On Reflexes: They are made from an oversize tubing that's forced through a two-part extrusion die. The first part creates the curves of the spoke bed plus the tire bed, and leaves two flanges sticking up on the sides (almost like a reduced clincher rim). Then the second part of the die folds the flanges over. This creates triple thickness right at the edges of the rim, which pretty much eliminates the problems of the Reflex's predecessors (they tended to get flat spots on the rim very easily, especially with the 280 and 330). It also allowed Mavic to make the rim with a very thin walled tubing. The drawback is in the dies themselves. The dies are old at this point and Mavic presumably doesn't want to replace them (at significant cost) for a rim that has limited appeal. Using an old die causes metal to work harden prematurely, which on rims usually happens around the ferrules. Slight flexion back and forth of the ferrule against the very thin metal wall causes the alloy to work harden and fatigue. An old die also causes inconsistent wall thickness, so you either have bulletproof spoke holes or exceptionally thin and fragile ones. As your spokes twist the ferrules back and forth, it work hardens the aluminum around the ferrules and suddenly you have a crack that will then propagate down the rim. Some people think that the grooves you sometimes see on Reflex rims become stress risers that lead to failure, which may not be entirely untrue, but it's the work hardening around the ferrule that causes the breakage. That's a long way around of saying that the Reflex isn't designed all that well for durability. Some people don't have problems with them, but they do have a significantly higher failure rate compared to many other alloy rims.

[catulle]

On Reflexes: They are made from an oversize tubing that's forced through a two-part extrusion die. The first part creates the curves of the spoke bed plus the tire bed, and leaves two flanges sticking up on the sides (almost like a reduced clincher rim). Then the second part of the die folds the flanges over. This creates triple thickness right at the edges of the rim, which pretty much eliminates the problems of the Reflex's predecessors (they tended to get flat spots on the rim very easily, especially with the 280 and 330). It also allowed Mavic to make the rim with a very thin walled tubing. The drawback is in the dies themselves. The dies are old at this point and Mavic presumably doesn't want to replace them (at significant cost) for a rim that has limited appeal. Using an old die causes metal to work harden prematurely, which on rims usually happens around the ferrules. Slight flexion back and forth of the ferrule against the very thin metal wall causes the alloy to work harden and fatigue. An old die also causes inconsistent wall thickness, so you either have bulletproof spoke holes or exceptionally thin and fragile ones. As your spokes twist the ferrules back and forth, it work hardens the aluminum around the ferrules and suddenly you have a crack that will then propagate down the rim. Some people think that the grooves you sometimes see on Reflex rims become stress risers that lead to failure, which may not be entirely untrue, but it's the work hardening around the ferrule that causes the breakage. That's a long way around of saying that the Reflex isn't designed all that well for durability. Some people don't have problems with them, but they do have a significantly higher failure rate compared to many other alloy rims.


Which would be your preferred tubular rim...? Thank you.

[terrytnt]

How about the Campy Neutron Rims with Veloflex? Has anyone tried this combo?

thanks,

tnt

[Jeff Weir]

I've only used Neutrons with Veloflex tires and it seems to be a very good combination. Appears to be a good match.

[djg]

How about the Campy Neutron Rims with Veloflex? Has anyone tried this combo?

thanks,

tnt

Yep, I've used veloflex criteriums and roubaix and the tires--no issues at all, although I wouldn't mind it if the tires were a little less expensive.

[terrytnt]

Yes... Neutrons and Veloflex Criteriums appear to fit PERFECTLY. Just mounted my rear wheel and it looks terrific... also VERY straight and aligned (actually much better than Vittoria CX).

Tomorrow I'll tackle the front wheel and hopefully when the storm clears this week, ride Friday morning in Bucks County, PA.

I'm stoked!!!