Syke wrote:
By the way, I've yet to ride a set of modern 700c clinchers.
and
Tubulars are no big deal, but they're still the best bicycle tyre.
Syke,
I think there may be a connection here. You might do well to borrow a set of modern clinchers and go for a ride. Will they ride like Criterium Seta Extras? No. But if you use reasonably good clinchers, say something in the $30-40 range, you will probably find the ride to be as good as all but the best tubular tires. Use the super fancy handmade "open tubular" type tires and I suspect the ride is better still (I personally haven't tried any of those fancy $50+ clinchers). Anyway, at any given per-mile cost I really don't know that tubualrs are better. The good ones are awesome, but they cost almost $100, and punctures cost either a lot of time and hard won skill to correctly repair, of must be sent to Tire Alert (or the like) to be fixed, which costs significant money.
Consider these benefits for someone who, unlike myself, does a lot of riding:
With tubulars you are limited to as many flats on a given ride as you carry spare tires. Usually this is one.
When you flat, you need to replace the tire and take it easy in the corners for the rest of the ride. When you get home, you need to reglue the tire. When you patch or re-tube a clincher on the roadside, the bike is back to full capacity and there is no further work once you get home (other than putting a new tube in your bag).
If you need to do any truing that requires vertical adjustments, you can pop off the clincher and reference the top edge of the rim. To do this with tubulars requires ripping the tire off, scraping the glue off the peak of the rim edge, truing the wheel and re-gluing the tire. Any time you pull the tire off, you risk damaging the base tape.
No gluing of tires. I know some guys don't mind gluing tires, but it does take more time (and skill) than mounting a clincher.
While I know we are all diligent about inspecting the condition of the bond on our tubulars, and while I recognize that clinchers can't just be ridden with blissful disregard for their condition, the requirement for inspection is simply greater with tubulars.
You can rotate a set of clinchers in about 20 minutes to get maximum life from a set of tires. I wouldn't suggest rotating tubulars.
All this having been said, if you are into old bikes, and doing it the old way, and enjoy working one bikes, and having the full old-school experience, then tubulars are in general, from an aesthetic, nostaligic perspective very cool indeed. But, when I consider the balance among ride quality, cost, particality, and my limited free time, clinchers are the way to go. Of course, if you are racing and need absolute performace, that's a different issue.
Still a set of special ride wheels with super-Gucci Dugasts or the like would be a luxury that I could enjoy, if I only had a little more money.
Tom Dalton
---------------------------------
Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.