I've been thinking about this off-and-on for a long time; what did they use for glue back in the days when you carried a tubular around the shoulders and installed it right there on the road in the middle of a race? It must have been something that remained relatively tacky, or wouldn't there have been even more crashes from tires rolling off the rims? I mean Gosh!, they sometimes had four or five flats, and the rules at the Tour de France stated that you had to use the same wheels and could only replace the tire, unless the wheel was damaged and unusable. So how did they get down the mountains without loosing their tires?
Is that where "mastice gutta" and contact cement are drastically different? Did Tubasti remain tacky even after a few flats?
I can't image racing through the Alps, knowing that my tubulars were not securely glued to the rims.
Aldo Ross
BlueBall, Ohio