I'm going to respectfully disagree - strongly on this one. Cheap tubulars have always given me terrible reliability. And over the years when I owned Bicycle Classics inc. most folks confirmed this observation as well. Some people do tend to get more flats in generall. You also need to try a large number of tires in order to get a good statistical sample. But after riding cheap tubulars in my younger years, I started riding top quality tubulars in the early 1990's - and I was amazed at how reliable the good ones are.
A friend of mine in high school used to insist that top quality tubulars were the cheapest way to go. In fact, he stocked up on large quantities of Vittoria CX and CG's - but they were so reliable, that years later he sold me a bunch of them since he was using so few of them and they were lasting so long - he had too many!
Mike Kone in Boulder CO
> I do not agree with the get what you pay for with respect to the longivity
\r?\n> of tubular tires. My personal experience is that I have paid for good
\r?\n> tires the flatted on my first ride and I have paid for cheap tires that I
\r?\n> have ridden time and time again without a flat. Ride performance aside, I
\r?\n> see no corolation between price and longevity. In fact I might go the
\r?\n> other way. The more expensive and finer tires are more delicate on urban
\r?\n> streets. Plus I don't feel bad when a cheepie punctures but I feel like
\r?\n> hell when an expensive tubular hisses it way to the ground on my first
\r?\n> ride.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Ray Homiski
\r?\n> Elizabeth, NJ