I have a 3 or 4 year old Conti Competition. I just checked it and the cotton tape on the inside is coming off the tire and seems to be rotted. Dont know if I should glue it back on(its off in about 5 places) or pitch it. The tread is good but at the price of a new one…
Thanks in advance.
Don’t race on it. The tire costs about $100. Aggravation during an “A” race is priceless. However, I’d keep the tire around. It could come in handy when helping others to learn about tubulars and their advantages.
–Matt
dont pull a Beloki - get a new tire (matt)!!!
BTW, I switched to Conti Comps after a year on Tufo S3’s, glad I did!! the best tubie i’ve ever owned.
-g
Gary, what is it about the Conti’s you like so much? Particularly, what improvement do you see over the Tufo’s? I ask b/c I have always used S3 lite’s and I recently replaced one with a Conti Comp(rear disk), mostly because I could get one cheap and fast. I’ve done one race on it(1/2 IM), but I’m not sure I can tell a difference. In all fairness, I only have one, as I’m still running an S3 up front. Maybe I could tell a difference running two.
I do know that for whatever reason, it took me forever to get it mounted. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I was. In fact I separated my thumbnail from the flesh doing it and bled for a couple of days. In the end, I never could get it seated perfectly and there was a definite “hop”. I’ve mounted Tufo’s on numerous occasions and never had any trouble. I don’t know if this was coincidence or what.
Anyway, I haven’t decided what to go with in the future. The price is the same. I’ve heard that there is less rolling resistance with the Conti’s. But a 19mm weighs 45g’s more and the 22mm weighs 60g’s more. This is rotational weight and *supposedly *this is more important than static weight. Also, if they are always that much harder to mount, my decision is already made.
Since you have experience w/ both, I’d be interested in your comments.
Cycle Sport covered the theme of tubulars tires about 18 months in their magazine… Al Pro Cycle teams (Well most of them anyway) ride almost exactly the same tires. Although you see USPS being sponsored my Hutchinson the tubulars they use are hand made in the same factory every year and the sponsors will put their brand on the tubular. This is not a “big” secret and the factory that makes the tubulars (all done by hand!) is the same factory that makes the Conti Comp tires. So the tires you see used by the Pro teams are in fact Conti Comps. They do both 22mm and 19mm. Lance for example used 22mm for both front and back in this years TdF (1st TT) and then switched to a 19mm front and 22mm back in the 2nd TT.
I only give you what I’ve read in CS… had some good pictures of the factory too!
“I do know that for whatever reason, it took me forever to get it mounted.”
Did you prestretch the tire before trying to glue it? If I prestretch my Conti’s I don’t have any probelms mounting them.
I think that the Competetion’s main benefit over the Tufo is that it is beefier. Sometimes extra weight in a tire is a GOOD thing.
I’m not Gary, but I’ll chime in with my experience of Tufo vs. Conti tubs.
In 2002 I needed to replace 8 year old Conti Comps on my Zipp 440 wheels. The sidewall was looking a bit ragged. I bought some TUFOs S3 Lite 210g (or something like that). First time out, going higher than 23 mph, it felt like the brakes were rubbing slightly. They weren’t. OK, I blamed it on bad legs. 2nd, 3rd, 4th ride, same feeling. Taper for 1/2 IM, do the final ride before the race, same feeling.
1 month after the IM, I played with the wheels/tires one Sunday. Rode the Tufos/440s, then rode the training clinchers (Conti GP 3000), then put the old Conti Comp tubies on the Zipps and tried them. There was for me a definite difference in the rolling resistance of the Tufos that showed up about 22-23 mph.
In 2003 I gave away the Tufos and bought Conti Sprinters (1/2 the $$ of Comps). The Zipps feel good again. No flats. No regrets.
my 0.02…
Horia
according to john cobb, the contis have less rolling resistance than tufo’s, gaining an estimated “10 feet per mile” faster than the tufos.
dont know if thats true, but the narrow 19mm comp in front matches my wheel profile perfectly, and there is no lip on the contis, something that may be less aero with the tufos.
the comps have been very reliable as well