I got a deal on some Easton EA70x wheels so I figured for a training wheel I would give them a try. I bought some Evo CX’s for tires and gave gluing a tubular a whirl. Well I followed this process:
Thin coat on the wheels and tires let dry overnight
2nd coat on the wheels and tires let dry overnight
3rd coat on the rim and let it sit about 15 minutes and mount the tire.
The third step was a major pain. I prestretched the tires for a few days before I started this process. Today was about 36 hours after I completed the gluing and I was lucky enough to get out and ride. The wheels are so bad that when I stop pedalling I can feel a hop in the tire and you can even her a repeatative noise like a dragging brake although my brakes were not dragging.
So that said, I am going to crack these tires off the rim and clean everything with a citrus solvent to get the glue off.
Any tips for the next try on this? I wanna get this nailed before I try on my 808’s.
Yea I did look at their instructions. I think I did everything right up to the point of mounting. I guess I didnt get the tire as even as I thought I did.
Your tubular cement will laugh at your citrus solvent. Try acetone, but even that doesn’t work very well. You don’t actually need to clean the rim, the dried layers replace the first two layers that you applied for the first gluing.
Also, it’s very important to put a layer on the tire base tape. It’s probably worth paying a specialty shop the first time. Ask them if you can watch to learn some tips.
And keep in mind that changing a clincher probably wasn’t that easy the first time either. It gets fairly easy with experience.
sounds like we are in the same boat. I also have the EA70X and 808’s. But i am also trying to practice on the EA70x before i try my 808’s.
Did you get your EA70X from Sierratradingpost.com?
Other then your misshap you had with mounting the tires, how was the ride of the wheel?
Actually I bought the wheels off of eBay and they are pretty nice.
So basically now I have 2 tires and 2 rims with glue on them. What do I now? Should I clean all the rim off of both or do I just need to do another layer on the rim and try again?
i did my first two with no idea what i was doing, same tires.
i put them on the wheels, inflated them and left them for two days. then stretched the tire by hand.
two layers of glue on the wheel, one on the tire, mounted, and alighed, no issues at all, on striaght.
you have blobs of dried glue?
I aligned it but I think from sitting slightly inflated for 2 days while the glue dried the tire kept trying to pull it self out of whack.
I didnt have any blobs of glue. Actually I didnt get any on the tread or the rim at all.
Did you look to see if its the valve where it is bouncing i have had a couple blackwell wheels where the valve opening is too small for valve and the ‘bubble’ where it attatchs to the tire mate. if you open the hole up in the rim a little bit it fixes the problem.
i did my first two with no idea what i was doing, same tires.
i put them on the wheels, inflated them and left them for two days. then stretched the tire by hand.
two layers of glue on the wheel, one on the tire, mounted, and alighed, no issues at all, on striaght.
you have blobs of dried glue?
I aligned it but I think from sitting slightly inflated for 2 days while the glue dried the tire kept trying to pull it self out of whack.
I didnt have any blobs of glue. Actually I didnt get any on the tread or the rim at all.
Did you look to see if its the valve where it is bouncing i have had a couple blackwell wheels where the valve opening is too small for valve and the ‘bubble’ where it attatchs to the tire mate. if you open the hole up in the rim a little bit it fixes the problem.
The tire was sticking up a bit more there, possibly could have been the spot that was hopping. Maybe I’ll try opening the valve hole some. Can’t really hurt anything.
As other posters have stated, you don’t need to remove the glue just add another thin layer. If you are getting a hop make sure that the tire is sitting properly in the rim bed and not riding up one of the edges. Also some tire manufacturers bunch up the base tape around the tire stem which won’t allow the tire to sit down in the rim bed causing the tire to hop at this spot. You can fix this by carefully trimming some of the base tape away from around the stem with a razor blade or enlarging the stem hole in the rim a little bit.
I trained and raced on tubulars for over twenty years and have had to do both operations in the past. Also, before I bought expensive tubbies I would have the shop pump them up to 25-30lbs to make sure they didn’t have any lumps and bumps from manufacturing, quality control is not always that great.
I aligned it but I think from sitting slightly inflated for 2 days while the glue dried the tire kept trying to pull it self out of whack.
I didnt have any blobs of glue. Actually I didnt get any on the tread or the rim at all.
Zipp instructions says to inflate the tire to 120-130psi.
Here is the link to their instructions: http://www.zipp.com/...nuals/wheel_care.pdf
After I mounted the tire I pumped them to 125. I was talking about during the process of applying the glue to the tire. When I pumped the tubular up the base tapes turns up and valve is sticking out to the side. So when I mounted the tire to the rim, the tire had a tendancy to pull in that direction. Thanks for the link too.