How to Stretch a tubular

Triathlon Forum
1

Just bought a new set of tubular wheels and I’m interested to know what’s the best way to stretch a tubular?

Thanks

Hector

2

Put them on a clean rim and inflate to full pressure.

Some people place them under the feet and pull up with the arms - the danger with this is that one can stretch them too much and tear the threads in the base tape or the tubular which one can hear pop but only after it’s too late.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/mounting-tubulars.html

This is one of the hidden costs of tubular ownership - you need extra rims lying around to stretch new tires so they will be ready to install.

3

I just stretch mine on the wheels they will be going on. I don’t bother with a clean rim.

Leave them inflated for a day or two.

4

Thanks for the advice, very useful.

5

Stretch them over a clean rim, pump them up and let them sit a couple of days.

6

I’m a new tubie user myself. Once stretched, do tubies somehow shrink back to original size? Or, once stretched are they good for a long time?

7

One good reason to do it when you get the tire is to detect any defects ( clean rim is necessary so you can return a clean tire ) and get your money back or exchange a bad tire.

Some folks leave them stretched until they put them on but this is not necessary. Mainly it’s to ease the install process so you only have to do it a few days before. Park Tool has(had?) a pretty good web page on tubular prep as well for a slightly different take. One recommendation by one of the pros was to stretch for a day, after tire stretched glue the base tape and let this dry, then put each in a plastic bag for later use. They glued the base tape of a bunch of tires at once to sort of assembly line process them. They preped a bunch of tires for future use but they obviously had much higher turnover and used those tires up within a season.