If you buy race wheels I very strongly recommend tubulars. There is a lot of "lore" and myth surrounding tubulars, mostly spread by people with either very little or no experience with them. A good local tri shop can give you a quick block of instruction on how to use tubular race tires and wheels. We teach a class here at Bikesport on how to stretch, glua and mount tires as well as how to fix a flat in a race. Everyone is amazed at how easy it is when we are done. Zipp, Hed and Renn are all very good wheels. My pick is the Zipp 909.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I am guessing that with those wheels (tubular 909's) I should only ride them for races. Do people actually ride tubulars while training/goofing off? It would be fun to use my future wheels on my Saturday group rides.

At my weight, do you recomend clydesdale models? I imagine I won't get much below 190 ever (unless I lose a bunch of muscle mass along with my baby fat :) ).

I think someone at your store recomended the hed3's because of my weigth.

I now only ride tubulars on all my bikes. Got rid of the clincher wheels. They're a bit more expensive but it's still not a huge cost when you compare it to everything else in tri.

I would recommend tubulars as well. I have been racing about 4 years and by no means am I a bike expert. I just bought a set of 404’s and toiled for about a month and a half on getting clinchers or tubulars. Everything I read about tubulars scared me. It seemed like they were more hassle than they were worth. So I had decided to get clinchers. When I went to order them, I found out there was a 2 month back order, much to long. So I went for the tubulars instead. Now, I think it was the better decision. They are a much smoother ride. It takes a little practice gluing the tire by I think it is well worth it.

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"No one ever told me they made black fondant!" - Duff Goldman

Traning/Racing Secret #75:

TRAIN on the heaviest non arero wheel/tire combo that will fit on your bike. Preferably clinchers, but you can go tubular if you have a bit better cash flow!

RACE on the lightest, most aerodynamic and strongest wheel tire combo that you can afford. There are quite a few wheel and tire companies out there but you really can't go wrong with either top of the line ZIPP's or Hed's shorn with Continental rubber, preferably Continental GP tubulars.

Make sure that all wheels are built up by the BEST wheel builder in your area. There is a science and art to this process and you need to know what you are doing.

In a perfect world, there would be a third set of wheels in the garage - a modestly aero tubular set, that bombproof for the Weekend World Championships Group Ride. You will want these when you are sprinting for the Hobunks Corner Town Sign at the end of a 100 miler.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I'm in the clincher camp. Although it's true that the tub. rim will be lighter than a clincher, the performance of the tires is very similar. In the triathlon cost/ performance trade off matrix, there are better places to spend your triathlon budget IMHO.

A top of the line tub. is $85-90 while a clincher is half that. This price disparity is particually accute in the 650 size where the choice in tub. tires is very limited. If you're new to tri's buy the clinchers, and you can swap the race tires with your training wheels after they get a few miles on them. That way your always racing on new rubber and it's not $180 a pop. ( If this isn't an issue, see the previous posts, there's nothing wrong with the performance of tubulars!)

If you;re new to racing, you won;t miss the small differance in performance and you can buy something else on your triathlon shopping list.

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Irony can be humorous, but it does not have to be.

"I've always said that an Ironman is a reflection of your character" - Kevin Moats

Right now, wheels are going to be my next upgrade after a wet suit. Last year I swam in a scuba wetsuit ......not good.

I am not sure that I will get the wheels this season, but I wanted to do my research so I knew what to get when I am ready.

If I can get my speed up by the end of this summer, I will drop the cash.

My very first ever tri was a sprint with a 750 m swim. Somebody told me to bring a wetsuit. Not knowing any better I showed up with my cold water scuba 7mm "farmer John" bottoms which sort of looks like the new T1 bottom only in 7mm. Talk about floatation with neoprene that thick! The next year I showed up with a brand new QR tri wet suit. The strange thing is that my times for both years were about the same.

I don't know where you buy your rubber, but worldclasscycles offers 16 models in 650c clincher and 14 models in 650c tubie. Looks like a decent selection to me ...

Dre'

Point taken on availability, I'm surprized there are 39 types of 700c tubulars! I still believe in picking a tire style and riding that for both training and racing, familiarity is a good thing and it cuts down on your inventory.

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Irony can be humorous, but it does not have to be.

"I've always said that an Ironman is a reflection of your character" - Kevin Moats

I have owned both. Trained on clinchers and raced on tubulars. The one thing I hated was trying to pack a spare tubular tire on my bike. It is much easier to pack a 2 clincher tubes than one spare tubular tire. Also if I had it to do over again, I would pick one direction and both train and race on the same type of tire. It got to be a pain having to buy both clincher and tublar equipment.