I race on tubulars and will carry a spare tire for races of half-Ironman distance or longer. Also, my preferred setup for carrying fluids on the bike is a jetstream up front, one bottle on the seat tube, and a single bottle behind the saddle (Minoura). Other than purchasing an Xlab Saddlewing to hold my beverages and spare tire behind the saddle, how do you recommend I carry a single spare tubular? My solutions thus far have involved folding/taping/wedging the tire between the seatstays above the rear brake, but I’m looking for a more elegant solution.
I can’t think of a truly elegant way to carry a tubular as they are so much bulkier than is a tube. I carry two water bottles behind me on Profile design bottle carrier. I can fold up the tubular so that it fits in an area between the two water bottles and in behind the seat, secured with velcro or black electrical tape. This way it’s tucked behind me out of site and shouldn’t interfere with aerodynamics. A friend of mine simply wraps his around the base of the aerobars.
Actually, there is an elegant way to carry a tubular under your saddle. They taught us at the Olympic Training Center how to roll it up and tuck it up under the saddle rails. It worked awesome, you could even fit it under there with a cage holder (such as the Minoura or the X-Lab). I wish I could show you a photo of how it was done… But it can be done.
Back in the early 90’s Bicycling Magazine had a little article on howto properly wrap a tubie. If anyone has old stacks and a lot of time, it’s out there…
(unfortunately, I lost my archive a few moves ago…)
I use the X-Wing set-up, but I have to say, I do have a couple complaints about the product:
Too heavy. The Minoura seems much lighter to me. Profile D. is heavy too as well.
Serves as very nice water bottle rocket launcher. I have yet to be in a race or training ride where I didn’t send at least one water bottle flying. Minoura doesn’t seem much better to me as the angle off the back is about the same. Profile D. has this one figured out by slanting the angle enough so the bottles can’t really shoot out.
When is someone going to make a light (not necessarily carbon, but that’s where I’m going with this) saddle mounted water system that doesn’t double as an RPG? Does one already exist? Any thoughts all?
yeah i had the saddlewing and that thing was amazing at launching bottles. Ive got the flatwing now and its a little better. But i still reach back there every like 10 miles and shove the bottles back down into the cage. I lost both bottles at WF 1/2 IM last year and had to be reliant on aid stations----good thing WF has great aid stations. I agree about a nice light non rocket powered bottle holder. Or just the opposite too—if there was like a little switch and you could hit a button and launch water bottles when you got some ass drafting off of you. I’d be like depth charges. That’d be sweet. Ofcourse you’d get disqualified for littering on the course. But what if the bottles had a little cord on them so it launched them, hit the guy in the face or something and then just reeled the bottle back in to the cage.