Has anyone used the tufo tubular clincher tires on the new wider rims such as the Firecrest carbon clinchers.I ride the Tufo C Elite ride 23 tubular clincher tires. Tufo says the are to be used on rims with an internal width from tire bead to tire bead of 13-15mm. Zipp firecrests are 16.25. I called tufo and asked them if they are going to be making tubular clincher tires for the new wide rim profiles and their reponsed was “The wide rims are just a fad and a marketing gimmick like dimples on the Zipp wheels”. He said it wont last. Not very eager to keep up with market trends. Never the less, i like these tires cause theres not tubes to mess with and no glue like tubulars. Im wondering if i’d be ok to run them on rims this wide.
they are a terribly slow tire, do you want to be putting them on your race wheels?
they are a terribly slow tire, do you want to be putting them on your race wheels?
I may use a different tubular clincher tire other than the elite ride 23. All the tubular clinchers are made for 13-15 mm width rims.
Are you saying the elite ride 23 is a slow tire or all the tubular clinchers are a slow tiresl?
Tufo is notorious for having bad CRR on their tires. Tubeless clincher tires, while in theory probably don’t HAVE to be slow, so far all of the ones on the market are pretty slow.
For race purposes there are non-trivial amounts of time being wasted if you go this route.
Tufo is notorious for having bad CRR on their tires. Tubeless clincher tires, while in theory probably don’t HAVE to be slow, so far all of the ones on the market are pretty slow.
For race purposes there are non-trivial amounts of time being wasted if you go this route.
____ Rolling Resistance?
Has anyone used the tufo tubular clincher tires on the new wider rims such as the Firecrest carbon clinchers.I ride the Tufo C Elite ride 23 tubular clincher tires. Tufo says the are to be used on rims with an internal width from tire bead to tire bead of 13-15mm. Zipp firecrests are 16.25. I called tufo and asked them if they are going to be making tubular clincher tires for the new wide rim profiles and their reponsed was “The wide rims are just a fad and a marketing gimmick like dimples on the Zipp wheels”. He said it wont last. Not very eager to keep up with market trends. Never the less, i like these tires cause theres not tubes to mess with and no glue like tubulars. Im wondering if i’d be ok to run them on rims this wide.
The REAL reason is that putting those abominations on ANY sort of race wheel would cause a spontaneous explosion…sort of like a matter/anti-matter reaction.
Plus, you’d probably rip a hole in the space-time continuum…
Seriously though, are inner tubes REALLY that much of a hassle? :-/
The basic question is whether these tires can be used on new generation wide rims, not whether they are fast or not. No, the clincher-tubular tires are designed to relatively narrow tolerances, so don’t try to use them on rims wider than spec.
Now, these are slow tires, but there are some value to them, including flat prevention measures. Hope that this helps.
He races in your category, doesn’t he? Tell the truth 
The basic question is whether these tires can be used on new generation wide rims, not whether they are fast or not. No, the clincher-tubular tires are designed to relatively narrow tolerances, so don’t try to use them on rims wider than spec.
Now, these are slow tires, but there are some value to them, including flat prevention measures. Hope that this helps.
He races in your category, doesn’t he? Tell the truth
Well, I’ll admit that I’ve had flat tires that rolled faster than the Tufos…they are remarkably horrid, but they do tend to last a long, long time. But so do cockroaches, I suppose.
They work great on the CompuTrainer. (
I used those for a while some years ago. They and their regular tubies are boat anchors–worse than Conti Gatorskins for Crr. Besides, once, up in the mountains on a chilly morning, I got a flat when I struck and asphalt colored piece of granite in the shadows. That damned thing took forever to change. I was sore the next day from the effort. AND, you have to carry another one as a spare.
This is what I’m going to try.
http://www.notubes.com/helpcenter.aspx
Click on the road tubeless install video. One of the LBS owners around here has been riding road tubeless for a while now. I want to give that a try for my training wheels. I have my rigid 29er tubeless and and about to go that route for my hardtail 26.
Tufo is notorious for having bad CRR on their tires. Tubeless clincher tires, while in theory probably don’t HAVE to be slow, so far all of the ones on the market are pretty slow.
For race purposes there are non-trivial amounts of time being wasted if you go this route.
The Tufo Elite Pulse isn’t on the list and it’s meant to be slightly faster, which understandably might not mean much compared to the competition but one does notice that they have to be pumped up pretty hard to get even a decent CRR, which isn’t always shown in the comparisons. So maybe the charts shouldn’t be at a fixed psi but at one that is recommended for the specific tire.
SteveMc
i’d be leery of using them with the wider rims like that, i think they are difficult to mount because they have to be real tight or they will peel off when you dive into a turn. The good news is a standard clincher with a nice tube will be a better tire by most any measure. I did not realize they even made these tires any longer, they are kind of nasty to ride.
Gluing up a set of tubulars isn’t all that difficult, by the way if you are looking for a race day wheel. They are nice to train on also with the advent of the liquid sealers.
Nope, the idea that the chart isn’t valid because they are fixed at a certain psi is not true.
The ranking of the tires does not change by changing the psi, that has been tested.
Tufo is notorious for having bad CRR on their tires. Tubeless clincher tires, while in theory probably don’t HAVE to be slow, so far all of the ones on the market are pretty slow.
For race purposes there are non-trivial amounts of time being wasted if you go this route.
The Tufo Elite Pulse isn’t on the list and it’s meant to be slightly faster, which understandably might not mean much compared to the competition but one does notice that they have to be pumped up pretty hard to get even a decent CRR, which isn’t always shown in the comparisons. So maybe the charts shouldn’t be at a fixed psi but at one that is recommended for the specific tire.
SteveMc
They would still be bad performers, its just that the lack of any irregularities on the velodrome makes the differences smaller. But the tire still has to deform under your weight, even at 200psi
[quote gabbiev
On a smooth velodrome, Tufos run at very high pressures aren’t bad performers;
TUFO makes some really narrow tires and they are really robust. I’d trust them with way higher pressure than most other light track tires. On a smooth velodrome a very narrow tire pumped to 200 psi might be a fast choice.
TUFO makes some really narrow tires and they are really robust. I’d trust them with way higher pressure than most other light track tires. On a smooth velodrome a very narrow tire pumped to 200 psi might be a fast choice.
maybe so, but there must be some better track options than that.
very easy to field test!
Why must their be? TUFO is one of the few companies that puts out a variety of track specific tires. This one http://www.tufo.com/elite-125g/ On a smooth track is likely hard to beat for aero, weight and Crr if you pump it up to a very high press, which on a smooth track can be useful.
Aside from that AFMs testing of TUFOs tends to get misinterpreted. Sure they aren’t great, but they weren’t quite as bad as gets bandied about on ST he never tested most of the lightest models , which should have lower Crr just based on less material used.
My intuition is that the large hysteresis difference between it and so many other tires would lead to some other tire being faster, even if those other tires had to be run at significantly lower psi for safety.
This could be wrong.
We could probably do some napkin math and get some good hints as to say, how much lower the psi would need to be on a supersonic before it got slower than a given tufo.
I’m also not inclined to believe that even on velodrome surfaces that 200psi is really fastest. The realtime crr/cda guys found optimum pressure to be much lower than that at the velodrome they were on for instance.
The Conti is quite a bit wider in reality, TUFOs tend to run really narrow, plus track cycling is one realm where you wont find many top competitors using clinchers anyway.
Aside from that do you have link to the track / tire pressure stuff.
Ah, actually what I was remembering was a test where they dropped from 170 to 160psi and got an increase in crr:
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/track-aero-system-offers-real-time-aero-drag-data-36669/
So, from that alone, 200psi might indeed be better, don’t know that they tried going up.
For what it is worth Kraig Willet seems to think their CRR measurement there is totally bogus though =)