gibson00 wrote:
Well, I had my first tubular flat yesterday at the 93km mark of a 95km ride. It was a Velofelx carbon tubie with about 600km on it.
I have had so few flats, that I had never had the opportunity to try my can of vittoria pitstop.....so I thought "Great. good opportunity to try this out!".
I use a black zipp valve extender on the Veloflexes, never have any issue pumping them up. So I put the pitstop can on, no go, white stuff starts building up around the top of the valve and pitstop container, would not go into the tire, no idea why. Tire didn't pump up at all. Tried pushing the can on a few different times, no go.
Now, i didn't have the full 'flat kit' I'd normally carry in an IM event, ie. razor blade and extra CO2, spare tire.
So I rode the last couple km's on the flat tire, and thought, "great, when I get home, this will also give me a chance to try the razor blade for the first time. OK, so got home, and was able to make a cut big enough across the tread to get a finger or two in, and yanked. Nothing. lol. Apparently I had this tire glued on well! Took ten minutes of more cutting and wrestling with it. Once I actually cut down into most of the base tape and got a little off the rim, the whole tire started to come off easy...
I'm really glad this happened since I've not yet faced this situation in a triathlon race. Has me thinking:
1. I left a good portion of the tire still connected to the rim, as I plan to perhaps find a better razor to use, and see if I can learn/practice to cut through to the base tape faster. Any particular type of razor/exacto blade you guys use for this without slicing your hand open?
2. I think I used one tube of glue on this wheel. I think it was the white mastik stuff (although I usually use conti glue). So now I'm thinking that even though it will raise the rolling resistance, I may need to use less glue in the future on my race wheels.
3. Not buying Vittoria pitstop any more. I do have a can of the caffe latex stuff, so will carry that from now on, and hopefully have better luck.
or
4. Time to switch to clinchers??? :)
I had a flat a few weeks ago on my tubulars. I had a can of the Hutchinson Fast Air which had the tube and a thingy on the end to attach to the valve. Some came out at the valve but the tire sealed ok and inflated just fine. Rode 10 miles home with no issues and continued to use the tire for a few more weeks until I put a new one one for Savageman. In my n=1 experience, Fast Air works!