Tubulars on Rivendells

[Bill Lindsay]

A few things came together and prompted me to build up a tubular wheelset for my Roadeo.  The rims are vintage MAVIC GL330s, and the tires are super sweet Veloflex Vlaanderen which measure a true 27mm.  Now my Roadeo tips the scales at a legit <20 lbs.  I am keeping my clincher wheelset as well, but DANG, this bike is fast with supple tubulars.  

Photo proves I rode The Three Bears on tubulars for the first time in 20 years.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/45758191@N04/49815410327

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Dan McNamara]

That bike just looks fast, Bill.

Dan

On Apr 24, 2020, at 4:08 PM, Bill Lindsay <tape...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Bicycle Belle Ding Ding!]

Bill, does tubular mean tubeless? If so, do the #RivSisters get to feel the tiniest swell of pride for maybe-possibly-theoretically influencing you, a resident Riv expert? I think we’re up to 3 or 4 of us women making the tubeless conversion in the last couple of weeks. I’m joking about our influence, but I do think this is a cool trend and I’m happy to see you and hopefully more folks trying Rivendells tubeless. Please let us know how tubeless is working out for you and any pros and cons you note on your rides.

At any rate, the bike looks lovely and also fast.
Leah

[Bill Lindsay]

Leah

No, tubular does not mean tubeless.  

Tubulars, aka 'sewups', have the tire and tube sewn together as a single unit.  It is glued onto a special rim made for the purpose.  Tubulars are considered racing tires, and are considered kind of old school.  Everything that isn't a tubular is called a clincher.  Tubeless is a form of clincher.  

Tubular rims are lighter than clincher rims of the same strength.  Tubular tires are generally regarded as more supple than clincher tires of the same size.  Tubulars were the only way to get supple tires back in the day.  The current renaissance of supple clinchers has closed the gap.  Most roadies don't think tubulars are worth the hassle.  They are better, but probably only just a tiny bit better.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA  

[Steve Palincsar]

Cross section of a tubular (aka "sew-up") tire.  Note tube in green.

-- 
Steve Palincsar
Alexandria, Virginia 
USA

[Bill Schairer]

I love the Veloflex Vlaanderen! At 27mm, IMO, they ride better than a 38mm, “supple” clincher. I’m an old fart, flat phobe who had always been intimidated by sew-ups. I finally decided I had to try them before I died and am I glad I did. I’m not an experience sew-up retrogrouch. I’m brand new (a little over a year) to them and a fan.

Bill S

[ted]

Yes but roadies are fools. The best moderate width tires give a nice ride but I’ve never ridden a 23mm clincher that rides near as well as a good hand made racing sew up. Never got a pinch flat on a sew up either.
I think the European pros still race on tubulars. Of course their employers pay for the gear, and their mechanics do the maintenance.

[ted]

So Bill, are those latex tubbed, and are you cutting em open and patching when you get flats?

[Joe Bernard]

I've always been fascinated by roadies hardcore enough to ride tubulars and doing the patching/sewing job on flats. I don't have a clue how they do it, but it's cool!

[Max S]

When I was a poor student and building a bike, I scored a great deal on a wheelset via wreck.bikes Usenet group. $60. Turned out it was tubular. 🤣 I read Jobst’s instructions on patching them (he was still active on the tech forum!), then put out a plea for used / punctured sewups. I got 4 of them for $10. I patched 3 successfully, and one forever had a leak. So I rode for two years on the bombed out streets of Berkeley on those wheels and tires, one tubular strapped under my seat, no flats!

Nowadays it’s either fat 650b tires from Jan or Vittoria sewups with latex tubes.

I do have about 4 nice cross tires that need to be patched, so I’m thinking I’ll send them to TireAlert... Anyone use their services? Good experience?

- Max “patching sewups during a pandemic is not a euphemism” in A2

[Jeff B]

I was actually contemplating the same thing for my Roadini since Rene Herse is selling FMBs now.

 A few years ago my Specialized representative was trying so hard to unload a set of CLX60 tubular wheels with tires mounted already and I should have bought them for price he was going for, it was amazingly low but I couldn't be bothered because my tubeless set up was going great, and still is.

I still might toy with the idea, especially using some older MAVICs like you Bill.

Specialized still has stock of the S-Works Turbo Cotton Hell of the North (Paris-Roubaix) tire that is listed as a 28mm (they might have had a 30mm at some point).

Either way your bike looks great!

[Jonathan D.]

Loved your builds. Ended up flipping through your bikes.

[Bill Lindsay]

Ted asked if Veloflex Vlaanderen tires have latex tubes.  Yes, they do.  

Ted asked if I am cutting em open and patching when I get flats.  

I've only ridden them 36 miles, one ride, and have had zero flats.  At the rate of zero flats per 36 miles, I'll never get a flat!  haha.

My roadside repair kit is a 2oz sealant, a pump, and tweezers to pull out the thorn, glass, wire.  On the same rides where you carry a spare tire as insurance against major sidewall cuts, I will carry a spare tire as insurance against major sidewall cuts. 

I used to cut open tubulars and patch tubes, twenty years ago.  I'm told sealant fixes the vast majority of small punctures.  We'll see whether I need to get back into the tube patching business.  Too be determined.  I still have a clincher wheelset for my Roadeo, so you don't have to worry about the bike ever being out of commission.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA 

[Bill Schairer]

Also being a Bill, I’ll volunteer my answer to Ted’s question. I have two sets of the Vlaanderen tires, each set with about 1800 miles times 4 gives me about 7200 tire miles? I have had one puncture too large for sealant -glass cut. The tire was at about the rated mileage limit and well worn but, unlike Bill L, I had no previous experience repairing tubulars so doing the repair was my opportunity for a learning experience. REMA patch and glue worked and the tire is still in service. All other punctures (not sure how many but not a lot) have been fixed with sealant. I’ve opted to ride with 2 spares and save sealant injections for home. I’ve changed exactly one tire on the road, the aforementioned flat. All other punctures were slow enough that I got home or they sealed from previously administered sealant. So far, I’ve come to the conclusion that latex tubes are more puncture resistant than butyl and leak more slowly when punctured. I’ve also pulled 3 goat heads out of tires with no sealant without any resulting loss of pressure. I don’t think I can ever remember doing that with a clincher.

I also did a complete tube replacement on a used FMB tire that I acquired with a leak. That involved cutting a new $15 tube in half, pulling it through and gluing it back together. Probably got the instructions on that from Sheldon Brown. It took a long time but, again, this was a learning experience. That tire has about 90 of my miles on it. Not the greatest repair job - a little lumpy - but definitely worth it.

I am also puzzled by a couple comments I’ve seen regarding these tires being for “roadies.” I don’t consider myself a roadie - never raced - always been a commuter, tourer and now recreational rider too. I’ve ridden my tubulars on and off road and will ride them under any conditions I would ride a clincher. Besides that, I believe many cyclocross racers use tubulars and I shouldn’t think they are roadies. Just saying.

I apologize as I know I have a tendency to get carried away with my enthusiasm but reading the positive experiences of others who debunked the notion that tubulars are something exotic not worth the trouble finally pushed me to give them a try. I mean, there are similar discussions regarding tubeless? Besides, the more people who will give them a shot, the better chance we will get or keep more choices. I highly recommend them for anyone who enjoys working on their bicycles. If somebody else does all your work, maybe not the right choice.

[Patrick Moore]

Bill L, that's a nice Roadeo, even nicer with the new wheels. Bill S, thanks for these apercus, and I welcome your enthusiasm; I think exalte's are nice people! 

It won't be this year, since the very long-maturing 3-speed road bike project is now under way and my money and time will be spent sorting that one out, but I do very much want to resurrect my old Libertas (60 X 56 c-c, exactly my size in level top tubes, and 5.9 lb f + f with steel campy headset!), and at just-turned-65, I believe I must commit to riding top-line tubulars before I die. It's good to hear that they ride so well, and I am looking forward -- into the distance -- to eventually riding them.

Bill S: I was very pleased to hear that a few goatheads didn't result in leaks even without sealant. I've had this happen with very stout tires, Big Apples, but not with light tires; so does one say that the thorns didn't penetrate the latex tubes, or that the thorns did penetrate but the latex kept close around them and blocked leakage?

Another question: One PITA of riding tubes filled with sealant is getting a puncture that the sealant doesn't seal. You are left with a casing full of spludge, which of course splatters all over you and the nearby landscape when you remove the tube. (I carry a rag precisely to wipe up such messes.)* 

Thus, when you have a tire where the tube is sewn up inside the casing, and you get a puncture that the sealant doesn't seal -- doesn't the sealant leak out into the casing? And when casing is sewn shut over tube -- what then? I'd imagine you have a plus-que-bloody mess, right? 

And more than this, when you go to remove the punctured tube, at least in my clincher experience, the ongoing minor leakage as the sealant takes its time to seal recurrent punctures means that you are faced, when time comes to remove the tube, with a tube that is firmly glued to the inside of the casing. Does this happen with tubulars, or are tube and casing so tightly pressed that the sealant can't get out and roam around inside the tire, so that leakage is minimal?

My remarks bear on sealants even more than on tubulars, but my principal interest is whether sealants make tubulars viable. List traffic seems to weigh "pro." I'd be interested in hearing more from others who ride top line tubulars in goat head areas.

*(I think that my recent problems of sealant not sealing is because I've been using Orange Seal Endurance -- skim milk version -- in my tubes, not the full cream version -- "regular." OS Endurance works very well in my fat, thinwall, low pressure Big Ones, but I've just switched back to regular for tubes and, sample size of 1 ride, all well -- after 2 consecutive rides of OSE and flats and mess.  -- All in all, even the best sealants are nasty, messy PITAs. I was struggling with the crust built up around the underside of the bb and lower dt on the Matthews just now -- practically ineradicable. But they allow nice tires in thorn country, so I quietly offer it up.)

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

[ted]

Re: association of tubulars with "roadies"

I guess really the association should be with "racers" though I think some folks use of the term "roadie" implies a MCFRB riding racer wana be. Back in the day high performance meant tubulars, but mostly only racers or racer wana bees bothered with them (or even knew of them). Back then racing pretty much meant road racing, though of course "road" racing includes things like Paris - Roubaix and strada bianca. There was always cyclocross too and from what I understand tubulars ruled there as well and still do. But isn't cyclocross almost by definition racing? Most folks not racing oriented didn't bother with the expense and perceived trouble of tubulars. Over time narrower and higher performance clinchers became available and most amateur racers and wana-bee types moved to those. By the early 90s when I wanted to get my campi high flange / arc-enciel tubular wheels rebuilt I had to traipse all over silicon valley before I found a shop that wanted to do it instead of trying to convince me to just go to clinchers. These days I don't know what a typical tubular rider would be except perhaps a professional racer.

Anybody in the sf bay area interested in a pair of old lightly used light tubular wheels? Mavic hubs (freewheel rear)  gl280 front gl330 rear rims. There's an AC aluminum freewheel on the rear at the moment.

[Patrick Moore]

Ted: As I said in an earlier post, my Libertas + tubular wheel project is scheduled for 2021, if I and the world last that long, but I'd be interested in seeing a photo of and hearing your price for your tubular wheelset -- if you'll consider shipping them. If the price is low, I might be interested even if it means paying a shop to pack.

Would you consider selling and shipping just the rims?

Others: what can all y'all tell me about Arc en Ciel rims?

Thanks.

Patrick "but it's really too early" Moore

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[Bill Schairer]

Patrick, lots of questions, may I answer below?

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 6:07:39 PM UTC-7, Patrick Moore wrote:

Bill L, that's a nice Roadeo, even nicer with the new wheels. Bill S, thanks for these apercus, and I welcome your enthusiasm; I think exalte's are nice people! 

It won't be this year, since the very long-maturing 3-speed road bike project is now under way and my money and time will be spent sorting that one out, but I do very much want to resurrect my old Libertas (60 X 56 c-c, exactly my size in level top tubes, and 5.9 lb f + f with steel campy headset!), and at just-turned-65, I believe I must commit to riding top-line tubulars before I die. It's good to hear that they ride so well, and I am looking forward -- into the distance -- to eventually riding them.

Bill S: I was very pleased to hear that a few goatheads didn't result in leaks even without sealant. I've had this happen with very stout tires, Big Apples, but not with light tires; so does one say that the thorns didn't penetrate the latex tubes, or that the thorns did penetrate but the latex kept close around them and blocked leakage?

I assume that the thorns did not penetrate the latex tubes.  My assumption is the latex is far more flexible than the butly and only deformed rather than punctured.  In each case I expected the tire to deflate after pulling the goathead out but that never happened.  Since you are in goathead country, I should probably add that all three were picked up in my front tire and I became aware of them within only a few rotations, apparently before they could do their real damage. 

Another question: One PITA of riding tubes filled with sealant is getting a puncture that the sealant doesn't seal. You are left with a casing full of spludge, which of course splatters all over you and the nearby landscape when you remove the tube. (I carry a rag precisely to wipe up such messes.)* 

The reason I ultimately decided to do my sealant injections at home.  Initially, I rode with one spare and sealant but switched to two spares and no sealant.  Although, when I toured I carried 4 spares and sealant but never needed any of it.  I was paranoid. 

Thus, when you have a tire where the tube is sewn up inside the casing, and you get a puncture that the sealant doesn't seal -- doesn't the sealant leak out into the casing? And when casing is sewn shut over tube -- what then? I'd imagine you have a plus-que-bloody mess, right? 

I encountered this with my used FMB and thus came to a couple conclusions.  First, if the tire doesn't hold air long enough to be able to ride at least a little bit, don't use sealant because then you will, yes, get a mess.  I was foolish enough to administer sealant more than once thinking maybe another dose would do the trick.  The resulting mess made my subsequent repairs much more difficult but not necessarily messy.  I use effetto mariposa sealant because it has no ammonia.  I was told by LBS that ammonia in sealant will eventually dissolve latex tubes.  I have no idea if that is true but they lost a sale because all their sealant had ammonia.  Anyway, it was this mistake and mess that is largely responsible for the lumpiness of my repair.  First I had trouble extracting the old tube and also pulling the new tube through.  I finally had to open up the tire in several places and use a dowel to fish/force out the solidified sealant mess.  Naturally, I had to do a lot more sewing and being that this was my very first sew job, well, it is lumpy.  But, hey, this was after all a learning experience.  From reading, it does seem different products have different messiness properties which is why I specified which I use. 

And more than this, when you go to remove the punctured tube, at least in my clincher experience, the ongoing minor leakage as the sealant takes its time to seal recurrent punctures means that you are faced, when time comes to remove the tube, with a tube that is firmly glued to the inside of the casing. Does this happen with tubulars, or are tube and casing so tightly pressed that the sealant can't get out and roam around inside the tire, so that leakage is minimal?

I have no experience with this yet.  In the above experience, I didn't feel my difficulties were a result of any gluing properties but more an issue of clogged passages.  I kind of removed some balls of dried up sealant, enough to get the old tube out and new tube in.  Maybe there is still some left in the tire?

My remarks bear on sealants even more than on tubulars, but my principal interest is whether sealants make tubulars viable. List traffic seems to weigh "pro." I'd be interested in hearing more from others who ride top line tubulars in goat head areas.

My experience is definitely positive.  I'm PRO! I have read that others have had less satisfactory results.  I think some inject sealant as a preventative measure.  I wait for a puncture first before I use sealant.  I have zero personal experience with tubeless but I figure if sealant works for tubeless so well, why not in a tube too?  So far, so good.

*(I think that my recent problems of sealant not sealing is because I've been using Orange Seal Endurance -- skim milk version -- in my tubes, not the full cream version -- "regular." OS Endurance works very well in my fat, thinwall, low pressure Big Ones, but I've just switched back to regular for tubes and, sample size of 1 ride, all well -- after 2 consecutive rides of OSE and flats and mess.  -- All in all, even the best sealants are nasty, messy PITAs. I was struggling with the crust built up around the underside of the bb and lower dt on the Matthews just now -- practically ineradicable. But they allow nice tires in thorn country, so I quietly offer it up.)

On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 5:48 PM Bill Schairer <comm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also being a Bill, I’ll volunteer my answer to Ted’s question.  I have two sets of the Vlaanderen tires, each set with about 1800 miles times 4 gives me about 7200 tire miles? I have had one puncture too large for sealant -glass cut.  The tire was at about the rated mileage limit and well worn but, unlike Bill L, I had no previous experience repairing tubulars so doing the repair was my opportunity for a learning experience.  REMA patch and glue worked and the tire is still in service.  All other punctures (not sure how many but not a lot) have been fixed with sealant.  I’ve opted to ride with 2 spares and save sealant injections for home.  I’ve changed exactly one tire on the road, the aforementioned flat. All other punctures were slow enough that I got home or they sealed from previously administered sealant.  So far, I’ve come to the conclusion that latex tubes are more puncture resistant than butyl and leak more slowly when punctured.  I’ve also pulled 3 goat heads out of tires with no sealant without any resulting loss of pressure.  I don’t think I can ever remember doing that with a clincher.

I also did a complete tube replacement on a used FMB tire that I acquired with a leak.  That involved cutting a new $15 tube in half, pulling it through and gluing it back together. Probably got the instructions on that from Sheldon Brown.  It took a long time but, again, this was a learning experience.  That tire has about 90 of my miles on it.  Not the greatest repair job - a little lumpy - but definitely worth it.

I am also puzzled by a couple comments I’ve seen regarding these tires being for “roadies.”  I don’t consider myself a roadie - never raced - always been a commuter, tourer and now recreational rider too.  I’ve ridden my tubulars on and off road and will ride them under any conditions I would ride a clincher.  Besides that, I believe many cyclocross racers use tubulars and I shouldn’t think they are roadies.  Just saying.

I apologize as I know I have a tendency to get carried away with my enthusiasm but reading the positive experiences of others who debunked the notion that tubulars are something exotic not worth the trouble finally pushed me to give them a try.  I mean, there are similar discussions regarding tubeless? Besides, the more people who will give them a shot, the better chance we will get or keep more choices.  I highly recommend them for anyone who enjoys working on their bicycles.  If somebody else does all your work, maybe not the right choice.

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[Benz, Sunnyvale, CA]

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 1:59:54 PM UTC+8, Joe Bernard wrote:

I've always been fascinated by roadies hardcore enough to ride tubulars and doing the patching/sewing job on flats. I don't have a clue how they do it, but it's cool!

Joe, it's actually not that hard. The patching part is identical to patching tubes from clinchers. The extra bit is finding where the puncture is, so that only the threads near it are unraveled, so as to pull the tube out for patching. After that, it's stuffing the tube back and trying to sew the bit that was unraveled. The stitches only need to be even and doesn't have to look good, because it's all glued back anyway.

The harder part of using tubulars, to me at least, is mounting the damn things straight and even onto the rim, without getting glue everywhere. Yes, I know about using tubular tape, but that seems a bit like cheating, plus it's rumored to not have as nice a ride nor hold as well. To be honest, if you only ride tubulars, it's not that bad because there's efficiency of scale (both in setup and practice of manual labor); it's only annoying when you have to take everything out for one set of tubulars, and discover that the glue's dried or your fingers aren't nearly as strong as you remembered.

[Brewster Fong]

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 6:17:23 PM UTC-7, ted wrote:

Re: association of tubulars with "roadies"

. These days I don't know what a typical tubular rider would be except perhaps a professional racer.

Another reason some people are willing to ride tubular tires is because of carbon rims. A couple of my buddies ride carbon tubular wheels that weigh in the 1000 to 1200g range for the wheelset!  That's crazy light. They also claim they can feel the acceleration like when you sometimes need to "close the gap" or maybe was watching and people took off and now you're struggling to stay in contact. And since the "pros" use it, I think tubulars will be here for a while.

[William deRosset]

They have been with us for well over a century. No reason to think that they're going away too quickly. Right now, they are lighter, less expensive, as durable, and as easy to live with as clinchers. They do require a different skillset that requires some practice/training.

I haven't had to pull and patch a tubular since I switched to sealant for punctures in the field (2012). That makes a tub flat repair faster than a clincher one assuming you find the nidus of failure in either case.

The big downside is the profound shortage of tires in the 28-32mm range with road treads. If you ride with heavy loads, a 27 will require too much pressure to be fun/compliant/puncture resistant in my experience, but I am no lightweight at 14-15stone depending on the season.

Anyway, your mileage and experiences will vary. Enjoy the ride!

Best Regards,

Will
William M deRosset
Fort Collins CO USA

[Corwin]

Hi Max -

Never used TireAlert. Interesting they offer tube replacement, but no patching. Lots more sewing to replace a tube.

I don't understand how using basetape instead of glue is cheating. IMHO, the only criteria is whether the adhesive on the basetape or glue holds the tire to the rim - without creep. Would not be fun if the tire came off the rim.

Ordered a set of tubular wheels from Rich. Rich says Velocity can't come up with the rims till summer (at least).

Still riding clinchers till the new wheels are ready.

Namaste,

Corwin

[Patrick Moore]

Thank you Bill. I'm gradually absorbing tubular lore and data and, though my Libertas project is far enough in the future that it's not visible to the naked eye, I've been tempted to push "buy" for several recent list posts (boblist, I think) for old tubular wheelsets. But another person on this list spoke of Rich building wheels with modern tubular rims; will wait until project is closer to consummation before I buy.

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[Bill Schairer]

Replacing tube from sheldon brown:

Tube Replacement

To replace the entire tube, open the tire on one side of the stem, the side that seems to be easier to re-sew after the repair. Open about eight to ten cm the usual way, so that the old tube can be pulled out by the stem. Cut the tube and attach a strong cord to the loose end of the tube to be pulled through the casing by the old tube as you pull it out.

Cut the "new" latex tube about 8-10 cm away from the stem, tie the cord onto the loose end and pull it gently into the casing. Dumping some talc into the casing and putting talc onto the tube help get the tube into place. With the tube in place, pull enough of it out by stretching it, to splice the ends together.

Splicing the Tube

This procedure works only with latex tubes. Overlap the tube ends so the free end goes about one cm inside the end with the stem. With the tube overlapped, use a toothpick to wipe Pastali rim cement into the interface. The reason this MUST be done in place is that the solvent will curl the rubber into an unmanageable mess if you try this in free space. Carefully glue the entire circumference and press the joint together by pressing the tube flat in opposing directions. Wait a minute and then gently inflate to check the results. More glue can be inserted if necessary if you do not wait too long.

Bill S

[Scott McLain]

What a beauty!  I am riding a Surly pacer as my go fast bike.  I was wondering if I would see much difference in the Pacer and a Rodeo.  I believe you have had both.  Is the Rodeo as dreamy as it looks?

Best,

Scott

[John G.]

Former Pacer and current Roadeo owner here. Yes, you will see a difference! Not just in speed, but in handling and comfort, too. Pacers are good bikes; Roadeos are outstanding.

[Patrick Moore]

I just saw this. Some very experienced recreational -- ie, non-pro, but the sort who do PBP and other brevets -- say that tubulars are simply more cushioning at a given width than equivalent wired-ons. Some also say that they are, all equal, faster. Tubular are certainly -- all equal -- lighter. They're still very popular with mere enthusiasts.

I've never ridden tubulars, but recent threads on their merits have convinced me -- hardly a pro! -- to try them when (God willing) I get my very nice steel road frame built up (don't worry, it's Rivendellian; all lugged light 531, 45 cm stays, and "fistful of seatpost" sizing (60 X 56 c-c).

If fact, I think Bill Lindsay of this list equipped a new Roadeo with tubulars.

Certainly the performance difference with "clinchers" has greatly lessened with the new, thinwall-casing tires from Schwalbe and R Herse and others.

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 6:17:23 PM UTC-7, ted wrote:
>

> Re: association of tubulars with "roadies." These days I don't know what a typical tubular rider would be except perhaps a                   > professional racer.

[William deRosset]

> Re: association of tubulars with "roadies." These days I don't know what a typical tubular rider would be except perhaps a > professional racer.
--

Hi, All,

Old. Tubular users are all old because nobody younger than I am (50's) learned to use them and stuck with them long enough for the hassle factor to get manageable. Or they're professional racers with old DS's.

Best Regards,

Will
William M. deRosset
Firt Collins CO USA

[Max S]

Well... a few (somewhat) younger folks still riding them, I should hope, self included!

I’ve ridden tubulars off and on for ~25 years now, mostly 22 mm road tires. In the last 3-4 years, I’ve been really enjoying 32 mm Vittoria XN, intended for dry hardpack cross courses, riding them on a mix of dirt roads and paved roads. I recently also tried a clincher version of the same tire, albeit with butyl tubes (the sewups have latex). They’re nice, but the sewups are cushier and the whole wheelset is a bit lighter, FWIW.

If you’re a handy and curious sort and haven’t tried tubulars, I do recommend giving them a try. Plenty of rim brake wheels should be available for relatively cheap, as folks switch to disc brakes and tubeless, and high quality tires 27 mm and wider are available for good prices. If you’d like to get a racer-y type of bike with narrow clearances to handle a wider range of terrain, or give it more comfort, tubulars with latex tubes may be a good way to go.

Sourcing tubulars from the UK shops used to be very cost-effective (e.g. 4+ at a time), but even Excel offers decent prices from time to time. For glue, I recommend Mastik 1, which has been found in a scientific study to work best. (Carogna tubular mounting tape has been popular lately, for its relative speed and cleanliness, but I enjoy the meditative hour or so it takes to refresh the glue in a rim, a couple of coats on the tires, and mounting.)

Enjoy the ride!

- Max “old skool” in A2

[Ryan M.]

The only experience I've had  with tubulars are on a cyclocross bike and I thought they were the bomb. I did not like gluing them and felt the hassle of that was too much for me, but I felt they rode pretty nicely on a cyclocross course. I'm tubeless now when I can, except on the road. I've had several bad experiences with tubeless on modern road bikes. 

The Roadeo is such an awesome frame and makes a really nice road bike. That's a beautiful bike.