What Happened to Tubular Popularity?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by m4rk540

That's a very reasonable hourly rate.

But if you're only charging 10 bucks for clinchers, why not upsell the tube and do the labor and instruction for free. And if in fact clinchers flat like crazy, you'll be selling a greater percentage of tubes at a higher mark up. Patching tubes might be as tedious as gluing tubulars. I wonder if shops could get away with charging customers $40 to patch up tubes. You know, to incentivize conservation.

$10 plus a $7 Conti tube..'higher mark up'...yup, that extra $2 per tube will keep the lights on. We DO show the person how to change a tube..but amazingly, we still did it everyday.

Yup, yer still deep into the 'clicnhers are better' camp..'great clinchers and above average tubulars are a wash'..paraphrased..not interested in looking up what you said..Back to 'tired of trying to convince'..part of this really long, typical winter time, thread..

Im no expert. But ive always been told to

hmmmmm

Glad you like clinchers, ride on..gonna keep my tubulars, thanks..once again..I see NO compelling reason to use any clincher..ever..

OUT

[Hindmost]

Originally Posted by Clean39T

.....It would be interesting to do a meta-study that mapped enneagram and/or meyers-briggs to tubular vs. tubeless vs. clincher utilization...

The other axis could be Shimano vs. Campagnolo.

[rwsaunders]

Originally Posted by Dave B

I just bought a bike that came with tubulars. The tires on them basically fell off, soI bought new tires, good ones and know how to glue, but how much glue do you leave on the wheel? Yes they are carbon rims.

Do they need to be totally cleaned?

oh, I don't care about the tubular vs clincher debate. I like a couple of specific tires, most of my wheels are clinchers, sooooooo I buy clincher tires.

Now I have a set of tubular tires, sooooooo now I'll give them a go...again.

Just could use some expert advice on how much glue should be on the rim before a re-glue

Since you’re asking, I’d clean them down to the rim surface just because. Essentially, you will know for sure the condition of the glue that holds your tire on the rim and you’ll not have to clean them again for a number of years. Ymmv of course.

[KarlC]

A walk on the wide side of life, freshly glued and sealed.......

[pasadena]

tubulars


clinchers

[Drmojo]

Originally Posted by RWeb

After over 20 years I finally tried tubulars for the first time a few years ago. Not as convenient maybe as clincher, but to me any additional inconvenience is negligible and is far outweighed by all of the positives about them. I just wished I had tried them sooner. I love them.

7 k miles on tubs
one slow leak
but sealed up
pumped up
go

[grognaak]

I work with a guy who complains the same way about every problem: "Gawd, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!" I think of my coworker and all of my childhood model airplane projects gone wrong when I see this thread.

Someday I may get around to building some sweet tubular wheels to realize once and for all the rim nirvana of yore. I don't feel much urgency in this moment. I'd like to find someone who is willing to lend me a spare set for testing purposes before making the investment. An appeal of tubs for me is safety, but I've never seen that quantified. I imagine the increased risk from clinchers is marginal.

My curiosity is probably best explained by ethos: some bike sages love tubs.

[TonyG]

I think a lot of the pros and cons come down to being comfortable with what you are use to and seeing no reason to change.

I raced on tubulars for about 20 years and trained on mostly clinchers. When I stopped racing, I found myself eventually using exclusively clinchers. It would probably be a pain to transition back although it is tempting to see what those old Lew Composite tubular wheels would feel like. Of course, I’d have to pull out the old C-40 because my new bikes have disks (man do I regret that!).

For me the slicing and dicing of one being better than the other kind of becomes irrelevant considering that I know how to use what I’m using and don’t have to relearn the tubular routine. If I ever found myself being 20 something again and racing, I’d 100% race tubulars.

A longtime local cycling friend from days of racing -who is also on this forum - is still exclusively on tubulars…. He is a lot smarter than me; maybe I should rethink this. But then he uses ball point pens rather than my obviously superior fountain pens.

.

[sipmeister]

Originally Posted by KarlC

A walk on the wide side of life, freshly glued and sealed.......

That's beautiful. A perfect setup.

[Gummee]

If you're riding gravel (as defined by the pretty smooth stuff we have in the DC area right now) you owe it to yourself to ride tubulars. Ride's even better than tubeless.

M

[ceya]

I love my tubular tires.

Clinches are getting more than tubies now.

[Ruimteaapje]

My city racer with plush 27mm Dugasts. A can of Vittoria Pitstop at the bottom of the groceryshopping/lugage bag just to be sure...

[beeatnik]

I got a flat the other day on the Mean Streets of the San Gabriel River Trail and to my dismay I had forgotten my Pitstop and a spare. At least 200 cyclists rode by (it was a Sunday) and none could help. Ah, but my bike looked rad with those tasty Arenbergs. Hay, do tridorks ride tubulars?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by beeatnik

I got a flat the other day on the Mean Streets of the San Gabriel River Trail and to my dismay I had forgotten my Pitstop and a spare. At least 200 cyclists rode by (it was a Sunday) and none could help. Ah, but my bike looked rad with those tasty Arenbergs. Hay, do tridorks ride tubulars?

So..you are criticizing those 200 because you did a poor 'preflight' on your gear?

Some do use tubulars but most don't cuz they have no neutral support, no pits, no cars following..so they gotta change their own tires..so clinchers mostly. Remember most tri-sexuals are not cyclists and view the 'bike' as the thing between the 'swim' and the 'run'..plus for tri people that time even their 'transitions'..doubt they would stop anyway...

[jpritchet74]

I just got a nice set of Boras from KarlC and got some Veloflex Carbons glued onto them yesterday. I can't wait to get them on the road!