A Return to Tubulars - Tufo Tire and Reynolds Wheel Review

[Zard]

I am setting up a new CXIIcs (it is at the LBS!! awaiting a fork) and wanted a slick set of race/aero wheels for my Ironman events and had decided on the Reynolds DV Stratus clincher set until I saw the price - yikes nearly $2,000! The tubular version runs $700 less and that did it especially after reading about the new Tufo tires. I gave up on tubulars about 15 years ago due to cost, being stranded several times with flats and the general hassle.

After a couple of rides here are my impressions. First, the whole Tufo system has really change my approach to tubulars, especially the sealant and the glue tape. One of the things that bothered my about tubulars was being stranded without a way home if I had more than one flat on a ride. A lot of the places I ride to don't have cell phone coverage so if you break down you are SOL.

I've heard nothing but positive comments about the sealant. So, sooner or later I'll find out for myself.

Second, the glue tape "extreme" version with the plastic backing as opposed to the "normal" verson with paper backing makes mounting the tire a two minute joy.

Third, the Tufo tires (Elite Road 23 mm) looked great out of the box. A nice solid tire that mounted dead straight. They have a nice amount of rubber on the sidewalls and look considerably more durable than the old tubbies with the thin sidewalls I use to ride. I wish someone would make a 25 mm tire however....seems like everything tubular is in the 21 mm range. I like more rubber.

I'm still experimenting with tire pressures. I got a bit overzealous with the air pump so I ended up with rock hard tires at first. But after letting some air out they absolutely smoooothed out. Nice. Very nice.

I will say that the tires don't seem to "sing" like my old tubulars and maybe the ride is not quite as plush and grippy but these tire look far more durable so I'm willing to compromise.

As to the Reynolds DV Stratus wheelset. In a word: Wow. As set up they are a full one pound lighter PER WHEEL than my 36 spoke Mavic Open Pro/record hub daily beaters. Yes folks that is two pounds of rotating weight eliminated. I've ridden a few aero type wheels over the years and was never very impressed if you had to do anything but go in a straight line. These wheels are in a compeletely different category.

My 61 cm Legend with these wheels weighs in at just over 17 pounds!

My only gripe right now is that the hubs are tight and don't roll as fast as they should. But I was forewarned about this by a Reynolds Tech rep who told me that there was a 300 mile or so break in period before they loosen up and roll fast.

Can't wait to pick up my new CXII - hopefully on Monday. Oh, and if that isn't enough Santa arrived early and dropped off a beautiful new CIII (Frost white and Quicksilver) for my wife last week.

Photos to follow...

[Climb01742]

thanks for the review. tufo's are sounding more and more interesting...

[Zard]

I'll re-post in a month or so. I should have a much better idea by then whether or not the Tufos are the real deal.

[rustolium]

Zard made a great picture of the tufo experience and I agree. I will however add just a bit of my experience.

I think of the tufos as training tires. I was really surprised by how much better a corsa evo cx rolls compared to the elite road. So, just keep that in mind. Honestly, it was quite a drastic difference for me. I am no expert, but it has something to do with latex vs synthetic I think.

I have had 1 out of the last 4 tufos have some sort of a sidewall blowout. I mention it as it was just a strange place and on some sort of seam.

Once you get a puncture and add sealant, be ready to not be able to get more than 90 - 100 PSI into the tire. It will get you home though. I did, on the advice of a shop, put some green slime into one tufo that their sealant would not stop once you tried to ride and the green stuff held well.

Tufos cannot be repaired. (at least that is what I have been told.)

Watch out for the tufo sealant when you are out on the road doing a repair with CO2. The sealant is very milky at first so it flies out of the hole and makes a mess if a lot of pressure goes in too fast. It is easy to clean off the bike, but impossible to get out of clothing.

Tufo have gotten me home everytime I have flatted with them. I still use different tubs when I want the best riding feel. The tape is much easier to deal with than glue.

[Zard]

Rustolium,

Thanks for your post. Yet another reason I like this forum so much. Real world experience and instruction that are not provided by the manufacturer.

I agree with you re the Tufo's ride characteristics. When I first put them on I thought they were a step up from the clincher experience but not to the old tubular ride I remembered. Riding them at 115-120 has helped smooth the ride out. Still, they just are not as supple in the hand or on the wheel as I remember a tubular to be. But as I mentioned, I'm willing to compromise a bit for a tire that will get me home.

[D-Squared]

Did you have any trouble putting the sealant into the Tufo? Did you remove the valve core to get it in?

[zap]

I've been using tufo's tubs for 2 years on one bike with carbon zipp 303's. My biggest grip is that the regular tufo tape comes out of the side. The result is that on long rides some of the residue will get on the braking surface. It's not unusual for me to pick the crude of the wheel after every ride.

Not sure if heat from braking friction is causing this.

Does the extreme tape do this? Otherwise, I'm switching to some "regular" tubular glue.

[Too Tall]

Zipper, probably not. The extreme tape is narrow. You can have mine.

GREAT feedback on TUFOs. I am in agreement that the Elite Roads are an awesome training tire. I have not used their lighter tires but and guessing they are quite raceworthy. For crits I use Veloflex tubs and there is nothing but good to say about them puppies...they are way fine.

The sealant works most of the time. I've had a round of learning lately on how to deal with troublesome leaks and it's too much to go into here. TUFO North America has it's own forum and TUFO owners and potential buyers should read up. I'll toss this out. Has anyone besides me truied SLIME instead of TUFO sealant? Any reason this is a bad idea? It works.

[Zard]

D-Squared:

I removed the valve core. The sealant tube fits right over the valve stem. Took a few seconds to fill. A little sealant came out on the fingers otherwise no problems.

[rustolium]

Just so you guys know. I just finished a century ride with the extreme tape and it does end up with those boogers (that is what they look like) all along the outside rim edges.

Also, I have tried one pair of the jet elite >160. They are light and small, rolled nice, but i had a strange blow out at what looked like a seam on the side of the tire. In all fairness these tires are not intended for normal conditions so I didn't make a deal out of it, but I didn't get very many miles into them before one got a puncture (within 60miles) and then a few rides later the second one had the blow out. Sealant was useless. Luckily, I had a spare on this ride. I normally do not carry a spare with tufos.

This did all happen during a time recently that it really seemed like everytime I looked at one of my bikes they got a flat. Some kind of voodoo or something.

[coylifut]

My only word of caution is be careful when using a "taped" wheel in the wet. I've seen a number of rolled tubulars lately and they were all taped.

[ace007]

After reading lots of feedback on these forums and checking out the the Tufo tires and the extreme tape, I made my first entre into the tubular realm this weekend. I'll have to admit, it was much easier than I estimated. The Tufo tape was very easy to get on and get on straight. I would recommend you deflate your tire completely after mounting your tire on the tape when you have to pull the top layer of mylar off the the mounting tape or the tape will separate and you'll have to pull up the tire to get the rest of the tape out. Other than that, the tires ended up really straight and probably only a millimeter off of perfect only on the rear tire.

The stories I've heard about the ride qualities of tubulars being so great is absoulutely true. At least with what I have. They spin up very fast and just fly on the downhills and the flats. Hills were somewhat better but I really felt it on the speedier terrain.

I use the Tufo S3 Lites (<215g) with the extreme gluing tape. Wheels are Velocity Escape with Sapim CX-Ray bladed spokes mounted to White Industry hubs. Noticeably more comfortable than the clinchers I've experienced. I'm thinking of buying some Bontrager Race X Lite Tubulars as a second set. Any experience out there with those wheels? Any help or advice would be appreciated for this tubular wheel newbie.

I went to tubulars for all of the above mentioned reasons plus the safety factor in the case of a sudden loss of pressure on a tubular that the tire would remain on the rim (provided it was mounted correctly). My uncle David blew a clincher on a 35mph decent and broke ribs, scapula, and spent 2 weeks in ICU. He is now unable to ride due to atrial fibrulation caused by his stay in ICU (they think).

So...all of you contemplating the move to tubulars - GO FOR IT. If my tubular experience continues to be as sweet as my ride on Saturday, I'll never go back to clinchers. I hope I don't experience some of the side wall blowouts described in this thread. Thanks again to all of you tubie riders out there for giving me the confidence to make the switch. :banana:

[ace007]

Duplicate post - sorry.

[zank]

Just a note on Tufo cross tubs...I ran my Tufo Elites down at 30 psi at Gloucester this past weekend without any trouble. I wanted to experiment a bit with pressure. Great shock absorption for a bumpy course, and they still rolled nice. I'm just a back of the pack B racer, but they helped get me through the 45 minutes with a little less pain. Great products for the dirt as well as the road!
zank

[Too Tall]

OK, just an update on using SLIME to repair my TUFO....day three and it's still got 120+ psi in it. F.Y.I. I only squirted in a couple table spoons...not much. Just enough to roll into the cut.

[D-Squared]

I saw your post on the Tufo forum. I noticed the moderator didn't reply to your post. So do you think Tufo riders should ride with Slime in their tubes as a precautionary measure?

[oracle]

too tall, how big was the cut?

oracle

[William]

After a quick look at the Tufo site, I didn't see any road tubs larger than 23mm. Did I just miss them? TT, what size are you riding?


William :)

[rustolium]

I had the same success with SLIME and my Tufo. So far, the Tufo sealant has only been good enough to get me home. It just does not seal very well. Every one of my flats have been cuts smaller than the recommended Tufo max and the sealant just will not hold more than maybe 90PSI. A little bit of SLIME solved that.

I will be revisiting my older Tufos and trying the rubber band idea as a sudo plug. I had wondered about a plug since these things do not have tubes inside.

[bostondrunk]

The drunk had two S3 lites on a set of zipps. They were very nice, mounted very straight. But they both punctured without many miles on them. When I tried to use that white crap sealent, it didn't do ****. I will stick to contis for now..

[Jack Brunk]

I use a product called tube spooze and is made by the guys who make rock-in-roll lube. I had a 1/2" cut in a conti sprinter and the stuff sealed the cut and got me home. When I got home, I had spooze all over my seat tube but it sealed well. I let the tire set for another 5 days and no air was lost. I switched from Tufo sealant to tube spooze because Tufo is a water based product and will dry up and not work if left in the tire for a couple of weeks. Tube spooze is oil based and will last in the tire for a long long time. I have had a couple of thorns with conti's and the tube spooze has worked each time.


Jack

[Too Tall]

Beats me. Vlad has answered my other questions fast but not this one. All my past experiences with TUFO sealant reflect Rustolium's findings...the 'chit will seal but not at a very high pressure. I am going to commute a few hundred miles on this slime'd tire and report back.

The cut is actually a small hole. Very small, like tiny!

Willm' the Road Elite has one of the most generous volumes for it's weight of any performance Tub out there. There is enough volume that these are infact what I use on our tandem.

Tube spooze. (repeating to myself)

[pbbob]

www.rocklube.com

tube spooge

[theprep]

Zard, rustolium and Too Tall

My road tubular tire experience is limited to Conti Sprinters and Tufo Road Elites. I read each of your comments on Road Elites and the fact that they don't roll well with great interest.

Were you stating that the Elites don't roll smooth or don't roll fast?

This past season, I had the Road Elites on my carbon 404's (racing wheels) and Sprinters on my alloy Velocity Escape wheelset (training wheels). All season long I thought the alloy/Sprinter wheelset gave a much smoother ride versus the carbon/Elite wheelset. The Road Elites rolled fast, but I guess any tubular on a 404 would feel fast.

After riding Monday, I removed the Sprinters from the Escape wheelset and mounted up the Tufo Road Elites. I was expecting the Tufo Elites to ride less smooth. After handling them in the garage, you notice how different they are from other tubulars. They don't flop around, they stay round, when partially inflated there is no twisting, in your hand they frankly feel stiff and not very supple.

On Wednesday I rode the Tufo Elites on the alloy Escape wheelset and they felt great. They were more supple than the Sprinters. They rolled just as fast as the Sprinters, but I can't say I noticed the 70 gram reduction in rolling weight. Now I know the rougher (less supple) ride earlier in the year can be attributed to the deep carbon rims of the 404's. I kinda guessed that anyway.

Am I missing something in the speed/ride quality department by not trying some of the other tubular tires out there? What tires would you guys recommend for racing (circuits and road racing, no crits) on the 404's next year?:

-Conti Competition
-Vittoria Corsa Evo CX
-Veloflex Criterium
-no Dugast - way too much $$, I got 4 kids

[rustolium]

thePrep,

On a set of Boras on the same bike I have felt a significant increase in rolling speed using Vittoria Corsa Evo CX vs Tufo Road Elite. I have tried the Tufo Jet <160 and they were nice, but still not up to the Vittoria.

I was really excited about the Tufo so I wanted them to blow me away. They are nice, but I really feel like there is a difference. In all fairness, my main comparison was going from the Vittorias to a pair of Road Elites with the sealant already in it. This initial evaluation may have tainted my perception a little, but I doubt it as I have had other very experienced riders tell me the same thing attributing it to the difference in the materials.

The quality of the Tufos looks good except for a sidewall blowout I had with their really light Jets. It is a material property issue not quality of build.

My perception is not based on any scientific fact.

I would love to try some Dugasts.

[zap]

I have rolling resistance data for Tufo Hi-Carbon & Elite Pro tubulars. Also for some Conti's, Gommitalia, Schwalbe, Veloflex & Vittoria.

It's pretty darn interesting and it's one way where you can buy some speed.
I'm hesitant to post data until I can confirm some details.

[theprep]

Awesome, the geeky engineer side of me is anxiously awaiting the rolling resistance results.

There is this guy Nino, over at the MTBR Weight Weenie site, that posted some MTB tire rolling resistance data from a German Magazine test. The winning tire was a Nokian NBX Lite. I got myself a pair and was mighty impressed.

Several other Forum members tried the tires and noted lower lap times on training courses. Some of the posts were pretty scientific. If it is a similiar rolling resistance test, then I am a believer in the data.

[Too Tall]

Moi? I never said anything but good words for the Elite Road TUFOs. LOVE em alot. Without hesitation I can say that my Veloflex are stickier....ask me would I race a crit on the road elite's YOU BET they are fine...however I would expect a little more scrubbing in the corners...not a biggie. But as the Duke would say "if you've got em' smoke em'". TUFO Road Elite is one HEL-L of an awesome high performance training tire in my book...your reading material choices may differ.

[Too Tall]

*Update* almost 100 miles later and the SLIME is holding perfectly. Buyer beware. Reading SLIMEs specs. tells me that it should not work at 120psi but it does work and TUFO c rap does not.

[Climb01742]

i have two questions: 1) can you use the tufo extreme tape on tubs over than tufo's, like on a vittoria? 2) i'm trying to visualize how you get the spooge or slime into the tire. could someone kindly explain it to me? many thanks. :confused:

[Too Tall]

Muuuhahahaha, a curious unmarked box arrived yesterday. Inside were paper bags filled with tubes of SPOOGE. Stay tuned.

spooge

[Litespeeder]

I have rolling resistance data for Tufo Hi-Carbon & Elite Pro tubulars. Also for some Conti's, Gommitalia, Schwalbe, Veloflex & Vittoria.

It's pretty darn interesting and it's one way where you can buy some speed.
I'm hesitant to post data until I can confirm some details.

I would be very interested in reading your data on rolling resistance. I have been riding with Veloflex tires for a while now and I'm very happy with them. I do not see any reason to switch to tubulars other than for safety reasons (e.g., a blowout at high speeds going downhill). A number of independent tests have shown that in general tubulars have a more rolling resistance than high quality clinchers like Veloflex. Apparently, it has something to do with the rider’s weight compressing the glue on the part of the tire that is touching the road. And this supposedly causes the part of the tire touching the road to deform more that a clincher would. I wondering if your data shows the same results. I'm particularly interesting in what your data shows about Veloflex tires.

:confused:

[Sandy]

I just started using a pair of Veloflex Pave clincher tires. They appear to have low rolling resistance. One of my first and lasting impressions is that they seem fast. Perhaps it is just perception. Perhaps it is not. I also would like very much to read quantifiable data on rolling resistance of some of the more popular clincher tires.

I have found that the tubular type clinchers like the Veloflex, Vittoria, and Vredestein tires all give the impression of low rolling existance and speed.
Interestingly, those tires all begin with the letter V.

Vandy

[alembical]

Climb,
I am not positive, but since you got no response, I thought I would say that I believe the slime/spooze goes in through the removed valve core, then the valve core gets rethreaded. As to using the tape on other tires, I have never heard of this being a problem.

Alembical

[Litespeeder]

I just started using a pair of Veloflex Pave clincher tires. They appear to have low rolling resistance. One of my first and lasting impressions is that they seem fast. Perhaps it is just perception. Perhaps it is not. I also would like very much to read quantifiable data on rolling resistance of some of the more popular clincher tires.

I have found that the tubular type clinchers like the Veloflex, Vittoria, and Vredestein tires all give the impression of low rolling existance and speed.
Interestingly, those tires all begin with the letter V.

Vandy

The Paves are great tires. I have really enjoyed riding on them. But all this talk of tubulars makes me want to at leat try them for comparison. I would be interested in your opinion on how the paves compare with any tubulars that you have used in the past.

:cool:

[93legendti]

I'll re-post in a month or so. I should have a much better idea by then whether or not the Tufos are the real deal.

I'm thinking of trying out this combo...my LBS had a nice price on the Reynolds wheelset. How is your experience 1 year later? Thanks.