https://www.bike24.de/...earch=Michelin+latex

I've been using the Michelin mtn bike ones for years. They are quite thick and durable - careful about ordering schrader vs. presta - I've made that mistake.

I haven't had great luck with the Michelin road versions. All mine seem to fail at the base of the stem. On my last pair I tried gluing a piece of an old latex tube around this area to kind of 'beef it up' and it did seem to work. The pink Vittorias are my go-to now though.

CCF wrote:

I've never used latex tubes. Building a couple of models on bestbikesplit for IM St. George 70.3 (chosen because it's my first race of the year) gives a time advantage of 81 seconds for the latex tubes. I understand that latex tubes are much more...finicky? than butyl tubes. Is that time savings worth the latex hassle? I'm asking because I honestly have no idea what the 'latex hassle' is.

Really great work, thanks a lot for sharing Tom.

If you don't mind asking, can you share who is sponsoring those tests, is it paid assignment? Do you buy the tires yourself or get them for free for review? Just curios if this is independent test or sponsored by tire/wheel manufacturer?

"That result for the GP TT makes it the new "top dog" for brand new tires I've roller tested. One caveat on that tire though...it measures much larger (24.6mm) than it's rated 23C on my narrow Mavic Open Pro rim, or nearly 2mm wider than a Continental SuperSonic 23C (22.8mm) on the same rim, and is only .0001 lower Crr (~1W difference at 40kph for a pair, or what I consider "tied")."

Tom, from your statement above, when Cda is taken into account what's your guess as to how these two tires compare?


Thank you for sharing your "hobby" results with all of us. I have to admit it is tremendous fun trying to find these marginal gains.


Tim

[
A lot of times, I just buy them myself because I'm curious (such as the Corsa Speed TLRs that just arrived yesterday).

Are you interested in doing a test on the newer SS 23 mm? If you are interested, I can send you a pair if you don't have some already.

Thanks. It's all sponsored by ME. I'm a hobbyist and this is just something I do in my spare time.

The tires are sourced variously. I usually mention where the source of the tires are in the posts I make on the results, but here are some examples of what's happened in the past:

• A lot of times, I just buy them myself because I'm curious (such as the Corsa Speed TLRs that just arrived yesterday). Sometimes the tires are sent to me by other cyclists. A surprisingly large number of the tires in my spreadsheet were sourced in these ways.
• There have been times that tires have been supplied by wheel manufacturers. For example, the majority of the tires in the post above where sent to me by the guys at Flo, and are the SAME tires they used in their wind tunnel tests. I've known Jon and Chris for a while now, and I did that roller testing for them both because I really liked the way the data was going to be presented (aero drag + rolling resistance) and they've been extremely kind to me in the past (such as sending me a wheel after hearing that mine was stolen). Another example is when I tested a bunch of tires for Zipp when they were developing their latest line of Tangente tires. They sent me competitor tires to test along with their own.
• A couple years back, when Greg Kopecky was with ST, he had sourced a large group of tires from various manufacturers (Vittoria, Challenge, Michelin, etc.) which he then sent to me for testing so he could include that information in his reviews hosted here on ST. I had already written a couple of technical articles for ST at that time.
• I've developed a relationship over the years with a couple of the technical guys at Specialized, and at various times they've had their tire guys send me models to test, if they think I'd be interested.

In none of those cases have I ever been paid to do the testing with cash. Sometimes I'm allowed to keep the tires that are sent to me, but many (most?) times the owner merely pays for the shipping for them to be returned. Of the ones I get to keep, if they aren't something I'd likely use myself, I'll give them to friends to use. For the Zipp testing, they wanted all of the tests to be done on their disc for consistency, so they sent me a Super9 for the clincher testing, along with a handful of tubular discs with tires already glued on (I told them I wouldn't do the gluing ;-) The tubular discs were all returned at the end, but they generously told me I could hold onto the Super9 in case they wanted some more tires tested in the future. Unfortunately, that wheel too was stolen (during the same garage break-in that the Flo wheel was taken - along with 3 road bikes...bastards!)

I've had bike industry manufacturers approach me before about how much I charge for testing...and I always say "I don't know what to charge...I'm just doing this for fun." If it's something I feel I want to spend the time on, then I'll either do it just because I'm curious, or we'll figure out some sort of exchange...I had one manufacturer give me a couple of water bottle cages as "compensation", for example ;-)

About the only time I felt I was "paid" for doing roller testing, was when I was approached by Andy Froncioni of Alphamantis. He had a customer who wanted to get some controlled information on some prototype tires they were developing. Andy contacted me to see if I was interested in providing that testing...and he insisted on paying me for the work. Since I had no idea what to "charge", he offered to send to me one of the few protoype Alphamantis Aerostick systems as compensation. I was a bit shocked by that, but wasn't going to say no ;-) Obviously, since the tires I tested at that time were prototypes for that particular manufacturer, those test results never made it into the tire listing spreadsheet. Interestingly enough, I later loaned that Aerostick system to the engineers at Felt, and didn't find out until the bikes were revealed, but apparently it was used during the development of their "left side" track bikes. The guys at Felt sent me a kit (jersey/shorts) as thanks for the loaner. But, in the end, nothing mentioned in this paragraph has to do with the Crr spreadsheet.

So...I guess that a long way of saying "not sponsored"...I just wanted to put that all out there to be totally transparent on what my motivations are. It's really just technical/sporting curiosity on my part. Yeah, it's not as "independent" as a "Consumer Reports"-type review (where all tires are bought in a shop or online), but it's fairly autonomous. I just report the data as I find it.

I hope that answers your question.

I've just switched to Gatorskins for my road bike which coincided with a month off cycling and have really struggled. I put it down to lack of cycling fitness, but perhaps the Gatorskins are a significant contributor??

I've never used latex tubes. Building a couple of models on bestbikesplit for IM St. George 70.3 (chosen because it's my first race of the year) gives a time advantage of 81 seconds for the latex tubes. I understand that latex tubes are much more...finicky? than butyl tubes. Is that time savings worth the latex hassle? I'm asking because I honestly have no idea what the 'latex hassle' is.

Yeah, in a quick search, I found them on Wiggle and Chain Reaction as well...including the MTB sizes!

Then RChung sent me a pic of the side of one of the boxes he picked up in France last year. Here's what's printed on the side:


So, I guess when Michelin said they wouldn't be selling latex tubes any longer, they meant just in the US :-/

On a podcast, the TrainerRoad and Flocycling guys noted a recent Kona contender had raced on gatorskins. They calculated how much time he lost doing that, and sure enough, it was enough that he could have won the race.