I've been looking at the same thing as have a set of 5000TL on my tri bike and tubed on my road bike for about a year now with 0 punctures. I found this forum that tells me I wouldn't use them unless on nice roads and a race that I figure all in for a result but not caring that much if I did get a flat.

https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/world-s-fastest-road-tire-veloflex-record-experience/44445/8

If you have rims and a bike that will accept wider tires, chipseal would be the place to use them. 25mm Corsa Speeds?

If you weight 120 lbs then I'd just air down the Records. Regardless, stay off the shoulder.

I think Xavier Disley from AeroCoach said the Veloflexs were a bit more durable than you would think when you first pick them up and the roads in the UK are probably as crappy as what you describe.

If it were me, I would want to test the Veloflexs at a warmup race before I rolled the dice. Knock on wood, I have had good luck with the Corsa Speeds and if you can set them up as tubeless that would be my go to choice.you lose a few watts to the Veloflex, but I would be reasonably confident with them on mediocre roads.

I can just barely fit 25s on my older p2.

Would you take a risk in your A race w these tires? 10w is a lot, but TX roads are not good either

What I've been doing (and other AeroCoach race team members have been doing) in races so far this year is riding Corsa Speeds on the worser surfaces and Veloflex Records on the better surfaces. Not smashed through a terrible road surface on Records yet but it is quite subjective as to what is bad and what is good so always a tricky decision to make!

---

AeroCoach UK
http://www.aero-coach.co.uk

Is the wheel slid back in the dropouts as far as it will go? If a 25mm CS will fit and not rub then I think the extra volume and lower pressure would be a benefit. The VFR is a very small 23... really close to their older 20mm. I like small tires on the front particularly if it's windy... but if the roughness is bad enough, wide (and low pressure) might be best there as well.

There is a wide range of badness when it comes to chipseal, so it's impossible for me to say for sure... but roughness is not generally something that will cause a flat. You can get a pinch flat if you hit a pothole or rock, but the pavement roughness isn't really a problem. So long as you stay off the shoulder, rocks, thorns, broken glass, etc are not an issue since the cars pulverize these and knock them out of the lane. So... potholes and big cracks are the main problem IMO.

You may want to get a second opinion on that. Bicyclerollingresistance did not find such a wide margin.
When testing those tires Jarno found that the Record fell between the 5000 TL and the regular 5000. If you extrapolate results based on his testing method (using a lightweight butyl tube) then you can probably say the Record is perhaps a watt faster than the tubeless 5000 and the regular 5000 is very close with a butyl tube. So I doubt the difference is more than 2 watts for both tires and thus, I would definitely take the durability of the Conti over the Veloflex.

(That is assuming that you gain two watts per tire going from the Conti race28 tube he uses for testing to a latex tube.)

There's a bit of rolling resistance bike dork intrigue - if that's a thing, and I think it should be - over the discrepancy on the results from BRR and Aerocoach. It appears that BRR may have tested a variation of the new Record with a "rougher/pebbled" surface that is slower than the smooth-surfaced Record.

---

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

Well, if I was going to question someone's methodology, it would not be BRR. He's been doing it a long time. Even so, if he got a weird tire, for it to be a 10 watt difference, then the Record would have to be rolling at 3-4 watts or so to be that much faster than a 5000. That seems highly unlikely.

Edit: So I went and looked at the BRR site and saw what you were saying about the tire inconsistency. Still, if you read the French guy Alban's site (if you read French) he found the tire to be around 6.25 watts with a GP5000 (latex tube) at 8.4. That is not far off the BRR so it seems reasonable to think a better pair of tires would gain you 4 watts, not 10, compared to a 5000, but even Alban said it was for perfect surfaces and most TT.

4 seems much more reasonable in my uneducated mind. But I’ve also never tested ties to know anything

Thanks for this. There shouldn’t Be holes, the road will just make my teeth chatter. Just normal Texas chip seal. Interesting that doesn’t cause flats (solve there are tiny rocks and crap hidden average). Might need to think more about that

And yup, in order to get 25 in the back my wheel is at the end of the horizontal dropouts / screws fully extended

Been so long since I looked at his setup I can't remember the details, but I wasn't impressed.

The question is how low you can go on pressure? A supple tire with pressure as low as possible is likely the fastest option. VFRs are small so a larger tire may be faster for that reason.

Anyone see Philippe Ganna's TT set up on social media yesterday. He is using the 25mm Continental Grand Prix TT tyres that measure a fraction faster than the GP 5000 on BRR?

https://www.ineosgrenadiers.com/article/fresh-new-bolide-tt-for-ganna

I trust Xavier more for sure. Someday I will get around to testing the Record myself but I'm just too busy right now.

Those are not the standard GP TT tires. The GP TT we can buy doesn't have any tread pattern like the ones on his bike. Limited edition pro model that's been out for quite a while I think.

---

Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Those tires have GP4000 tread marks... not like any GPTT you can buy. Custom pro tire? Probably without the vectran belt and with very thin tread... like an overgrown 20mm SS with aero trips... ya, very fast tire.

If your doing Texas state time trial from Hempstead to Monaville by NWCC that is the best tarmac stretch in Texas. You can use Veloflex for sure on that course. I train there all the time.

It’s also noteworthy that Xavier tested the VF Record (both variants) on two different surfaced velodromes in addition to theirroller apparatus.

Says it was recently paved... so is that actual asphalt? https://txttchampionship.com/...php/race-information

It's not looking good for any races in NM for another year...

Yeah definitely not chip seal. It’s black asphalt that’s smooth as glass. Run the fastest tires you can find.

Make sure to pace yourself. Likely into the wind going south with the wind coming home. 55/54-11 coming back if normal conditions.

Is it recently paved? Or have you felt that way for the past few years?

Yes... same race

Your post gives me confidence, I was about to throw in towel and go w a new set of gp5000

I was just out there training for 70.3 Texas. It’s smooth asphalt, not chip seal. I’ve trained out there for 6 years, always in great shape.

Race tomorrow =)

If it rains will you still run the veloflex?