Great question.

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that many(or all) race on tubulars, particularly in the longer races(Ironman and such). The main reason is that if you know what you are doing, you can change a tubular very quickly (1 - 2 minutes) and in a long race this sort of time loss is not that great.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I am a die-hard 'race on tubular guy', but earlier this season a my friend borrows my Ritchey WCS wheels (clincher) and goes sub-5 hours on the bike at Ironman Brazil. Damn it if that doesn't deflate my argument about clinchers being slow. He'll be on Zipp404 clinchers for Kona. Says he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of glue and clinchers don't seem to be holding him back. His tire of choice are the Clement Open CX. I've been ridding crits on these wheels with VeloFlex clinchers and love 'em.

As for the tire change, either will be around 2min with practice. Benefit of clincher is that it's solid after the change for the next down hill rather than having to baby it home to not roll the sew-up.

I think it's up to you.

The counters to this are:

1. You can really get stuffed by a sticky Tubular.
2. A repaired tubular is not as secure as a clincher, especially if the course is wet, or hilly and has lots of sharp corners.

So do you then lose the time after the change?

I'd choose clinchers because I've been caught with a repaired tubular in a race that proceeded to roll on me every 5- 10km, after which I'd stop roll it back and start again. It eventually blew, 30km from the finish. A repaired Clincher (which you can do pretty quick) would have been as good as new. I think the pros are a mixture of tub's and clinchers.

My $.02

Like your friend I am looking at buying some Zipp 404's in clincher's, the wheels weigh 1,554 grams and my Richey training 700c wheel set weighs 1,605 grams. My question is will I notice much of a difference with the Zipp's as they are roughly the same weight of my Richey's? I know they are more areo, and I am not interested in tubulars.

Thanks......

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"You're guaranteed to miss 100% of the shots you never take" - Wayne Gretzky

The Sweedish girl (i don't remember her name right now) that won IM Lanzarote twice a few years ago used Continental Supersonic clinchers.

Her name is:

Lena Wahlquist.



Best Regards Dave

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