Tubeless vs Tubular Talk for 2016

I raced Stan's Grail's and Ritchey Megabites tubeless this year. No burping. No issues at all. I had them as low as 27/29 and could have gone lower on the 90% grass courses.

I will be looking for a different tire though. The Megabites are a great singletrack, or all around tire. They shed mud really well, but they are slow on the pavement and dig into the soft sand. They did a good job for me for my first few races, and now I know how I would like to change things for the better.
 
The thing is I know the disc versions work well enough for pros to use them, but no one mentions the rim brake versions. The fact that @Rich W mentioned the width, makes me think of staying away.

I'm good enough at gluing tires and enjoy it, but just the commitment to it is something I'm not 100% happy on at the moment...
 
A somewhat off topic observation, but I'm sitting on yet another Amtrak train to Boston tonight and catching up some articles I've been meaning to read.

I came across this article from VeloNews from yesterday about the process of gluing tubulars, removing tubular glue, and rolling tires. It makes tubulars seem like a straight up waste of time, money, and tires. I'm sure the ride is supple and soft and feels like warm apple pie, but damn! That's too much work for the 21st century. You can theoretically ruin your $2-4k carbon wheelset pulling off glue and taking chunks of carbon with it.

Are tubs really that good? I've been running latex tubes all season and only flatted twice. Once at Nittany when I slid out which was pilot error and once at NBX when I was getting reckless and borderline aiming for roots. Generally I don't think any of the tubeless or tubular advantages outweigh their disadvantages. I can swap tires in 5 minutes and run high 20s psi all day long at 175lbs. Why would I want to complicate this?
 
High 20s at 175#s???? You should have pinched like 13.8664948382 more times, even with silky smooth latex all up in your shit.

Zero problems with tubeless over 3 years. Now giving tubular a try.
 
hotsauce said:
Why would I want to complicate this?
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Looking forward to trying tubeless next season, from tubes.
 
hotsauce said:
Are tubs really that good? ?
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Tubulars really are that good. I've run tubes, tubeless and tubulars in cross and tubulars win by far. The feel of them is awesome and you can run low pressures without pinch flatting. Tubular wheelsets are also lighter.

Just find a good bike shop and they can glue for you.

I have these wheels and highly recommend them: http://enve.com/products/enve-cx/

Go tubular, you won't regret it.
 
hotsauce said:
You can theoretically ruin your $2-4k carbon wheelset pulling off glue and taking chunks of carbon with it.
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That's just Lennard Zinn being an alarmist. It's really really hard to 'eff 'em up THAT badly. Makes for good copy though.
The only way you're gonna be able to make an informed decision about this is to TRY them :) Complicated can often be better. We didn't get to the moon on a horse.
 
At the risk of coming off as braggadocious (see what I did there), I'll weigh in.

When racing the C's and B's, you can get away with clinchers and running higher pressures, b/c you're not taking the corners suuuper fast. I raced clinchers my first year in the C's and B's and never really felt limited. When I started racing the A's I really felt limited by my cornering abilities. Those guys seemed like they were on rails and when I tried to hang, sometimes I'd wash out. I was running mid to high'ish 20's on PDX or grifo tubulars.

This year, I started running much lower, like low 20's. Never anything above 24 psi, no matter what the course conditions. Holy shit what a difference. Don't get me wrong, I still need to work on cornering, but I feel way more confident now and the breaking point of traction is much higher.

I'm not hearing anyone on this thread saying anything about running clinchers/tubeless in the realm of the low 20's. I just don't think tubeless can handle it and clinchers certainly cant.
 
@MadisonDan @Mountain Bike Mike, There's a bit of luck in there too. I didn't run that low at NBX but still flatted. I'd mostly attribute the flat to hitting every root in RI. On a Bubble, Marty's, Cooper River, etc type course it was fine.

@seanrunnette, true about the horse but simple is usually better when your not trying to advance humanity.

Maybe I'll reevaluate if I get to the pointy end of the B race and see A's on the horizon but after getting shelled at NBX that may not be for a while or ever. With a choice of pit bike, power meter, tubulars, or save money this off season tubulars are falling to the bottom of my list.

Great discussion though!
 
Bruno is spot on. Re-read his thing again.

couple things to add.
1)Racing cross on $2000 carbon wheels is dumb unless if you have a bitcoin laying chicken For that amount of money you can get 3 sets of decent tubulars AND tires.
2) gluing tires is no different than doing a 2nd grade art project. basically you put the glue on, you put the tire on, you ride the bike.
3) luck has little to do with flatting or not flatting. not flatting has 96.72% to do with not bashing your rim into things too hard. You can bash things much harder with tubulars and not flat than you can with tubes. BUT tubulars do not offer some kind of magic flat protection.

Do the cost-benefit analysis of all the things
1) A pit bike is only useful when your A bike breaks or flats. The chances of having a mechanical problem close enough to the pits to still be in contention is low. I have carried a pit bike to ~75 races and have ended up on it exactly five times and in only one of those situations did I make something of the race. Cost=high, benefit=negligible
2) Tubulars. They will help you go faster in every race. One set of lightweight aluminum tubulars is not so expensive Cost=small, benefit=big.
3) Power meter. A good training tool but it doesn't make your bike go any faster. If you are doing serious structure (with or without a coach) a PM can really help. Cost=moderate, benefit=depends on how you use it.
 
I run my clinchers in the low to mid 20's, but I'm 125lbs right now, so I can afford to. I tend to go low enough where I don't feel the sidewall collapsing on me in a turn and this varies depending on the course. For instance, I ran lower at Granogue and Nittany than I did at Bubble.

All that bing said, I'm very interested in a tubeless/tubular swap. I rode tubulars 30 years ago on my road bike and didn't mind the gluing at all. I found it to be a very meditative process. I always had beat up spare rims to stretch my new tubies on before I mounted them. Made it much easier and less messy.

I've yet to worry about a spare set of wheels as I haven't flatted on course yet.
 
Delish said:
Bruno is spot on. Re-read his thing again.
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mbruno said:
I feel way more confident now and the breaking point of traction is much higher.
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Good points by both. @Delish, very good point on the pit bike. I used a pit bike twice at NBX and was in dire lust for one day 2 of Supercross. But, none of those performances were remotely close to the front of the race and a pit bike changed nothing at any of those races. I guess my rational for a pit bike is it allows me to get the whole race in, even if it's from the back. Getting experience during a race is very beneficial for most racers and that often can't be done without a pit bike or pit wheels. Buying tubs does get you a set of pit wheels indirectly by leaving the old ones in the pit. Another 'pro' of a pit bike is less DNFs which feel so much more disheartening than finishing at the back.

A power meter is such a great training tool if you know what you're doing with it. Being able to compare power on different laps allows some good post race analysis and the TrainingPeaks Performance Management Chart has been great to track fitness and fatigue. It's definitely a luxury but one that I very much enjoy.

Why wasn't there any consideration for saving $$$ and doing nothing? Good thing my wife doesn't know the URL for this forum or she'd be moonlighting telling everyone to "run what ya brung" and slow down in every thread.

So, questions: what's the preferred inexpensive set of tubs for a disc bike with 12x100 front thru axle and 135mm QR rear? How bout tires? File tread or all conditions tires on tubs and vary clincher tires on pit wheels by conditions?
 
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Just race a hybrid and win so everyone gets mad.

hotsauce said:
How bout tires?
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PDX!

J/k I don't know anything about cyclocross, but these have been great every race for me including Supermudcross. Even at my anti-flat pressures of 35-40psi I rode BubbleBeach mostly fine and climbed mud slides.;)

I think this thread kind of convinced me into tubulars though between @Delish and @mbruno. Especially since I don't care about swapping tires or wheels for different conditions. I'll glue on some PDX's and forget it. Keep my clinchers as file/mud or whatever I think I'll need more.

Thanks yo!
 
We're getting away from the main point of why I made this:

If you were starting over, or just starting are you investing in tubulars or tubeless?

I feel that the Stans tubeless tech is very good and getting on to par with the performance that tubulars bring, and seems to be at a smaller cost. I wouldn't feel confident changing tubeless tires the day of an event, but the day before, sure. Even if its a couple bucks cheaper for a set of wheels, it may be a budget friendly option that can be the gateway to get off of clinchers and see what the other wheels are all about.

Tubular costs are way higher and more labor intensive than tubeless costs. I don't mind the projects of setting them up, but the flexibility of the tubeless and a cheaper cost is appealing to me. If I could start over again, I would only have two wheelsets, a mud one and a "fast" one. Maybe two light cheap alloy tubular wheelset could rival one tubeless wheelset and two sets of tires?

I wasn't planning on doing this, but lets break it down with some online shopping:
Tubeless Canti Setup
Alpha 400 Comp Wheelset - $500
Tires:
Clement PDX, $140 for 2 (always have one up front, rear for mud)
Clement LAS: $43 for 1 (for those dry days)
Clement MXP: $63 for 1 (for middle ground, all around)

$746 total

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Tubular Canti Setup
Alloy wheelset - Some KinLin build with Shimano Hubs on prowheelbuilder.com: ($468 x2 = $936)
Mud Tires: Challenge Limus ($164 for 2)
Dry Tires: Challenge Fango ($144 for 2)

$1244 total

Are tubulars worth an extra ~$500 over a tubeless setup that can handle all conditions?

In either situation, even now, I just throw a pair of clinchers with a medium tread in the pit along with a pit bike (if the pit is close enough to the car) which has whatever flavor-of-the-week tires on it.

In the end, I'm going to keep riding out what I have, I'm going to glue another rear Limus on that I have floating around that looks fine, and I will need to grab another "medium" tread. This seems to be the most cost effective option for me, for now! I just cant help but think about the other method...
 
Go tubeless. If you get dropped by a guy on tubulars, it's because you suck -- not because of your equipment. Timmerman kills it on tubeless.
 
Finally within the past year or two tubeless for cross seems like it has matured to the point of being a totally viable race setup. Clearly it is working for Timmerman and the NoTubes team.
Timmerman is not killing it on Alpha 400's doe. He is on Valors and that makes a big difference.

@hotsauce Doing nothing is a perfectly acceptable answer. Money doesn't come from chickens. There are some wicked fast people who get by on cheap bikes and tubed clinchers. But, regardless of how much one generally sucks, having a good tire setup (tubeless or tubular) that one can run at low pressures will make one suck a little less.

@pearl if you always run a PDX front why does your cost calculation include 2 sets of tubulars?

As for preferred inexpensive tubular wheelset? I'd build some kinlin 23mm (http://www.bikehubstore.com/TB20-S-p/tb20(s).htm) on their Bitex disc hubs. A little lighter than Major Toms and probably $325 to build a set. # of spokes determined by weight.
 
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Delish said:
probably $325 to build a set. # of spokes determined by weight.
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That's assuming you don't need to pay someone to lace them up. Not sure what the going rate is for wheel building, but I assume at least $100?
 
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