I've used tufo tape on one wheelset and dont experience any of those negatives. Would I use it on TT/Tri race wheels.. no. Clincher or tubeless for that.

I went back and looked at Al Morrison's Crr data on BikeTechReview. I had forgotten what a gold mine of information they represent. The tires aren't very current because the last update was 2010, but there is really useful information for the effects on Crr for tires, tubes. sealant, pressure, gluing... A must read if you want to maximize your wheel/tire combo


http://biketechreview.com/...ance/475-roller-data

I agree but I have cut sidewalls on front and rear tires on the first ride using new clincher Vittoria Corsa CX's. At the time these were like $55 each, it sucks no matter what tire you wreck.

rich

I posted earlier on page 1 about my use of tubulars, and specifically Tufo tubulars. I will say it again, I know there are haters of Tufos out there, BUT I stand behind them 100% for many different reasons. However, I'm not trying to sell anyone on a specific brand of tubular tire. Rather, I just want to offer up some of my real-world experiences with tubulars.

I have tubulars on all of my race wheels, and on my trainer bike I have clinchers. I have absolutely 0 experience with tubeless, so I can't offer anything there.

I have ALWAYS glued my own tubulars onto every wheel, no matter what. I would never ever, never ever, never allow anyone else to glue my tires on. For the simple reason, you have no idea how they were glued on. Anyone out there remember when Stadler had his melt-down in Kona, I think it was 2006.... He is on camera on the side of the road, using a small tree branch twig trying to pry his tubular off, and he yells out, "Damn, man....how much glue did you use???" He was referring to his mechanic who has glued on his tubulars. Bad move!!! Point of this being, learn how to glue your tubulars on FOR A RACE!!! This means, do NOT use 18+ layers of glue. If you do, that damn tire is NEVER coming off. I use 1 thin layer of glue on the tire, with small breaks in the glue along the way, and a break directly opposite of the valve. This way, I have a starting point to begin peeling from directly opposite of the valve. Remember, you're racing a triathlon, not a criterium with fast sharp corners. And yes, I too carry a small razor blade in my bento box, just in case I need to slice through the tire and insert my finger to begin to peel it off.

In real race scenarios, I have had 2 flats. One at IMWI where a gash opened up the sidewall, and two was at IMVineman where I ran over a 1/2" diameter bolt. Both times, no sealant would have saved me, so I had to replace the tire. For me, I can rip the old tire off, and slap on the spare tubular much faster than jacking around with a clincher and a tube. So, that aspect of tubulars works great for me. Practice ripping and replacing at home with some spares. I carry a pre-glued spare. I don't worry about the glue on the spare, as once you get rolling again, the tire heats up, and so does the glue to become sticky again. Yes, I am more cautious riding the spare, and I don't go bombing hills and turns at 40mph, but I have not had any issue with the 2 times I have had to slap on my spare.

Just my 2 cents worth. Everybody is different and has different experiences and practices. For me, I will stick with tubulars.

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Team Zoot-Texas, and Pickle Juice

Tufo tires are very slow.

Stadler should have had a razor blade.

This illustrates a key distinction between tubular and clinchers. First, the fastest clinchers roll as fast or faster than the fastest tubulars. More importantly, squeezing all that performance out of fast rolling clinchers is pretty simple. Install and inflate it correctly. Get a flat? Install and inflate a spare tube correctly. Same performance.

With a tubular, trying to go as fast as you can in a race situation, it's not so simple. A tubular glued as the above poster described will roll significantly slower than one properly and thoroughly glued. Lightly glued tubulars experience measurable increases in rolling resistance due to increased hysteresis. Properly glued tubulars that have that spectacularly low rolling resistance that you read about online are nearly impossible to change in a race situation.

So what do you choose? If you glue them so you can change them, they roll slower. If you glue them so they roll fast, you can't change em quickly. If you want to argue about suppleness and ride feel, knock yourself out. If you are a weight weeny building a climbing bike, maybe. If you are a triathlete who's goal is to go as fast as you can in a triathlon, tubulars are out of the conversation.

Tubeless might be coming on strong, but it is not quite there yet. Really no faster than the fastest clinchers with latex, and requires a user skill level that your average triathlete doesn't yet possess. My 2ȼ

A friend who burped and had to run a 1/3 of a lap to the pit wasn't winning anything earlier today.

Tubulars feel great, allow you to build a super light climbing wheel, they can be as fast as any tire, and allow you corner/maintain control on a flat tire. However, you should check out the BikeTechReview data I linked above. A lightly glued tubular costs you roughly 3-4 watts per wheel. Tufo tire are notorious for their high rolling resistance. The fastest Tufo requires at at least 5 watts per tire at about 25 mph compared to a good clincher. That is 18 watts which works out to about 70-80 seconds in an Oly distance race and about 5-6 minutes in an IM.

When the best and most expensive bike you can buy will only save you 6 watts, you should really get some Vittorias, extra glue, and pack a razor blade.

Vittoria road tires are garbage.

I'm optimistic about their CX range... but I've never had a good Vittoria road tires. Worst tires ever for punctures.

Again I agree about the tires!

I ran one of the cross tires a couple of years ago because I needed a replacement and that's what the shop had. Not a bad tire, handle d decently and stoop up to the abuse pretty well.

OK this has been pretty much a discussion about Clincher vs Tubular, but why does everybody dislike tubeless so much? Just read a statement by Lightweight that they don't do tubeless wheels because for road uses the "industry is not there yet", Conti is obviously thinking (still, would have expected them to change their minds quickly) its not the future.

In a time where so many buy oversized pulleys for maybe 0.6W savings, I am really surprised that not more people are going tubeless for potentially higher gains in rolling resistance. But maybe its because with a (non existing) tube you can not show off, while a huge pulley that is well known to cost 500$ catches everybody's eye....

I have seen a lot of technically competent riders working with excellent mechanics who simply cannot get their tubeless set ups to hold air consistently. Most of them go back to clinchers. I am neither a technically competent rider or mechanic, but I suspect the problem lies with the higher air pressure used with road tubeless compared to off road tubeless. Road riders w ho are running tubeless seem to use A LOT of sealant to get the job done. It can be a messy hassle. Top that off with the reality that the fastest clinchers + latex are neck and neck with the fastest tubeless, and there really is not a compelling argument for road tubeless for triathletes at his point. It really boils down to the same thing as tubular vs clincher.... it is super easy to get all of the performance out of your clincher set up, and that performance is pretty outstanding.

So, Tufo are slated for poor Crr because the inner tubes are vulcanised to the tubular casing i.e. it acts as one piece...and yet Tubeless is lauded for low Crr, because it's one piece....

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29 years and counting

I haven’t seen anyone be able to test a difference between a tire with a latex tube and tubeless, so while there would almost certainly be a reduction in Crr (it is just physics and the more material you deform the greater the energy loss), it is probably something like 0.1 watt or whatever the measurement error is.

The advantage I see of tubeless is not having to buy 12$ tubes.

I haven’t tried tubeless yet mostly because the only really fast tubeless tire is the TLR and can’t see burning through 60$ tires Ever 500-700 miles. Maybe when Conti makes a tubeless 4000.

I may have to get a set to carry if I have an issue, they look interesting. They do have a video of using a road bike also.

Just my experience, but I am using Bontrager R3 Tubeless, changed the rear wheel once, so 3 different tires, and the guy I know at the bike shop put them on his bike, and there has been no leakage issues, or any need for extra sealant.

Yes they can be a pain in the butt to get off the rim if you need to.

I don’t think a latex tube could stand the heat of being vulcanized, so the tube inside the Tufo is probably butyl. That is at least part of the reason they are slow. Panaracer made a butyl-lined latex tube. It stopped the leak-down of latex tubes but it increased the Crr to the point that it was no better than a pure butyl tube and they sure weren’t cheap. Panaracer also made another goofy material tube (can’t remember) but it was a little worse than latex and I think they were 30$ a piece. I think the take-home message is the butyl just adds to Crr and it is hard to do better than latex. .

All of these results are in one of the BTR report tables I linked to above.

Here is the deal with tubeless. Until the last few years, the tubeless rims were not very consistent. So many of the problems you see are people not using the newer tubeless rims or not using tubeless tires. Burping and blowouts can definitely occur if you don't get a good tire/rim setup. That is why Mavic (probably for legal reasons) recommends only using their tubeless rims with their tires.

A good tubeless rim will snap the tire into place and hold it pretty strongly.

But that is why I don't think tubeless is quite there yet, but soon. In a few years all wheels will be fully tubeless compatible and there won't be this gray area that there is now.

Part of is it that there's no 'one size fits all' approach here. What's best for one may not be best for another. Another thing to consider is that tubeless benefits really go down as the tire volume and psi go up. For road and tri, it makes way less sense than other disciplines.


Fat bikes
It's more of a weight savings and 'suppleness' thing. Most (stock) fat bike inner tubes weigh at least a pound/450-600 grams (the stock tubes in my Fatboy were 572 and 574). 4 oz of sealant, tape and valves isn't far off of 150 grams and is enough sealant for puncture resistance if you have a true tubeless tire and it's not 'soaking up' the sealant. If the rims and tires are up for it, converting is one of the most noticeable differences you can make. Jarno Bierman's testing shows about a 20 watt advantage (for a pair of tires) just by going tubeless. It's not easy, but it's worth it.


Mountain bikes
Again, you would be crazy not to. I bought the first Stan's conversion kit a dozen years ago and my very first tubeless mt bike flat came on Thanksgiving when I broke a spoke and it somehow poked through the rim tape. There's no sense in going any further because 98% of the people that regularly mountain bike and believe the Earth is round know that tubeless is that much better. You don't even have to get picky with sealant or tape; there's way more room for error in a low pressure system. Enjoy your inner tubes Flat Earthers.


Gravel
This is different than cyclocross. You typically see higher tire pressure, higher tire volume and/or a decrease in lateral loading that seems to equal 'burping' a tire. 'Gravel' also means different things to different people or in different locations. For the most part, you don't have to worry about burping. The pressures are low enough that most punctures would seal. Until we see more definitive rolling resistance testing, it's also hard to say if a true tubeless tire is 'better' than something like a high tpi tire with fast(er) rubber. Tom A. has touched on this a little bit. Sometimes the extra armor is worth the hit in rolling resistance too. A lot of these events take place in the middle of nowhere with very little or zero support. Unless there's a latex tube/gravel tire combo that's blowing away an equally grippy tubeless tire, it's hard to give the nod to a standard clincher vs. tubeless. Yes, I'm aware of Tom's preliminary testing that shows a fast clincher combo. It's pretty hard to hate on tubeless here if you're using tubeless tires and have some mechanical aptitude.


Cyclocross
This is a tough nut to crack and I still made mistakes this year with a rear burp in one race on the (recently replaced) Specialized Terra Pro. In short, you need tubeless rims, tubeless tires, and a tight fit. If you didn't need the bead jack to get it on, it will likely burp. I don't even bother with my tubular wheelset unless it's sloppy loose because I ran run my tubeless tires even lower before worrying about rim destruction. About 24/25 psi front and 26/27 rear is about where I'm bottoming out my rim quite a bit on the tubulars. With a slightly larger WTB Cross Boss or Schwalbe X One on Stans Crest rims, I could go a couple psi lower before bottoming out. WTB goes as far as telling you not to use their tires on Stans rims and a Schwalbe rep said something similar on another site. They use a UST (read 'tight') bead and Stans uses a slightly oversize rim to get a tighter fit. Mounting a tight tire to an oversize rim is really hard. Once you finally get it, it's pretty hard to burp. There's not many rim and tire combinations that you can reliably run under ~30psi in cross and it's not really worth running pressures that high for most people. But, it's also really easy to pinch flat inner tubes in cross. If you get the itch to race tubeless tires in CX, WTB and Schwalbe are really good starting points. There's a couple brands I haven't tried yet, but I have never burped a WTB Cross Boss or Schwalbe X One. The newest (started shipping November 2017) Specialized Terra Pro tires are supposed to be that tight as well. I could burp their previous stuff, but haven't tried these new ones as I smashed my wrist the week before that arrived. The tech is getting better every year. I don't really care about the impossibility of fixing a flat (due to the tight fit) since I have a 2nd bike in the pit. If they start making tubular tires in larger sizes (38?) I would be more interested. There's just not enough volume for my 190 lbs in a 33mm tire and a bumpy course. The smoother ride and better grip of the larger volume tubeless tires makes me faster in most conditions. It's easy for people to hate on tubeless for cyclocross because there's way too many combinations that won't work.


Road
Tubeless benefits really start to disappear when the volume gets low and the pressures get high. I started using road tubeless about 6-7 years ago. My only flats were a tape failure (burrs around the spoke hole finally pushed through), two flats in ~125 miles on the new Corsa Speeds and one time two years ago that I had a sealant stripe in my frame, but never felt or heard anything (and kept on riding). If you take out the tissue paper thin Corsa Speeds, that's pretty good luck with tires. The problem is that except for a select few tires, the rolling resistance advantage isn't really there. Anything much larger than a tack or thin nail doesn't seal exceptionally well on performance oriented tires. I have seen a couple instances where a ~25mm tire refused to hold the 'plug' above 70 psi. Definitely enough to ride with, but probably not a great long term fix. The beads are so tight that fixing flats along the side of the road are less than pleasant. I raced tubeless last year because the Corsa Speeds are fast when inflated and I couldn't find 23mm Supersonics anywhere. It's easy for people to hate on tubeless for road because they are such a pain to repair when/if they go flat. I'm still convinced I'm one of the only people that has successfully repaired a Corsa Speed on the side of the road with plastic levers. I could really go either way here and I believe a lot of people feel the same way.

Latex tubes. Way less hassle than dealing with dried up sealant, and you can use any tire.

It's because there aren't any actual or potential gains.

Are you saying you distrust the data? Because putting aside the questions of "why," that is what the measured data say.

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

IF you believe that sealant works as well in a latex tube as it does in a tubeless tire, then agreed, the purported "flat resistance" advantage of tubeless goes away. Not all share this belief.

IF you believe that not having a tube inside the tire gives you more air volume and a better ride feel, then tubeless has that advantage over a clincher with latex tube.

Agree the data seem to indicate that rolling resistance is about the same between a given tubeless-compatible tire (i) with sealant or (ii) with a latex tube.

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

The post I was answering specifically stated Crr gains. I believe flat protection is better in tubeless+sealant.

I agree!

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099