You'll get significantly less flats with quality tires, and they last far longer. (Tire width may be a major consideration for your specific conditions). I do not enjoy gluing on tubulars, so I don't buy cheap tires....
Cheap tires perform like... cheap tires.
Greg Parker
Dexter, Michigan
This is well and good, but if you are forced to ride on bad roads and you choose to ride tubulars how many are you willing to maul for that oh-so-sweet ride? Practicality sometimes rears its ugly head. I have a couple bikes that will have tubulars just because that is what they would have had when they were young, but I probably average a flat per week or more when I am getting in decent mileage. I am not sure I can stomach even trying fancy tubulars on my roads...
Doug VAn Cleve Chandler, AZ
On 1/20/06, gpvb1@comcast.net <gpvb1@comcast.net> wrote: Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:15:39 -0800 From: Chuck Schmidt <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR] Tubulars
Dan Siniff wrote:
> I would like to try a pr of Severio Corsa from the Yellow Jersey, I believe it
> is a "house" tire. Any one try these?
Greg Parker wrote:
> Servizio Corse tires are a Veloflex model. They are 210-gram, 20 mm tubulars.
About
> $100 each, list price. Pretty exotic (these days)....
Uhhh Greg, Dan's talkin' about these, 3 for $50. See below or <http://www.yellowjersey.org/tt.html>:
New Servizio Corsa Tubular Tires at Yellow Jersey Possibly The Best Value Tubular In America!
We've sold hundreds of our Thai-made d'Alessandro tubular tires over the past few years, bringing affordable, dependable tubulars back to the American rider. Unfortunately, the d'Alessandro label is no more. So, we researched all the available tires and, after testing, committed to Tom Petrie's new Clement TT tubular.
This is the same nice, round Thai casing of fine-weave cotton but with a smoother, more modern tread, premium long-staple cotton wound to a high 127tpi thread count and a trendy black sidewall. They are a true 300g with a nice hefty butyl tube so you'll find they hold air for weeks. (That makes a difference for us commuters!) Clement's designers even laid a fashionable base tape with the Clement logo under it!
So dig out that nice set of Nisi or Mavic Montlhery rims in the garage and build yourself a nice single speed this year! You remember how zippy those wheels were and it's a shame to leavethem gathering dust for want of a good cheap tubular. What with modern clinchers going for thirty or forty dollars (and even more! plus tubes!), these zippy tubs are actually affordable at only $19.95- or get our famous "pair and a spare" three for fifty bucks.
2005 UPDATE The owners of the Clement name have raised the licensing fees to a point where, uh, what exactly is the point? We're just not so sure any more. At any, rate we'll continue to offer the exact same tire we've sold since 1995, no longer with the d'Alessandro label and no longer with the Clement label but simply marked Servizio Corsa. They have arrived just as straight and uniform as always. 2005 tires are black tread with natural sidewall or all black.
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California http://www.velo-retro.com (timelines, reprints & t-shirts)
Yuck! "Straight and uniform twenty-dollar Thai tubular tires" is an oxymoron IMO. If'n y'all buy 3/$50 tubulars, y'all'll get what y'all pays fer. 300 grams with a butyl tube? Cheap tires perform like, well..., cheap tires, amazingly. Buy the real ones..... Greg Parker