cartsman wrote:
Interesting insight as always, thank you!
Raises the question though - why should the setup you've described have lower Crr than just running clincher tires and latex tubes? Is there a reason why manufacturers can make a TL tire that has lower Crr than a clincher tire?
Previously TL tires have been higher Crr than regular clinchers. The Corsa Speed TLR being the first big exception here and now the GP5000.. though the TL and regular seem to be about equivalent in Crr when using latex tubes.
There are some prototype TL tires in the ProTour right now which are not yet available to public and have very low Crr with more durability than something like the CorsaSpeed. Running these with latex is just easier for some of the teams than setting up and managing as tubeless.
Longterm, the directionality is clear.. the tire companies are devoting nearly all of their R&D resources toward tubeless, so the tech here is going to just continue to improve, Crr will continue coming down more for this category than for standard clinchers. As we still don't have great high pressure tubeless sealants and as noted, some of the plug solutions don't work well in tires this thin.. we've found latex tubes to be a solid stop gap with known performance, installation and maintenance characteristics.
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