Tubular Tire Follow-Up

Call me a hide-bound traditionalist, but I am big fan of tubular tires for racing. After a half-season of ‘cross on clinchers, I switched to tubulars and will never go back. For the road, I’ve always been a tubular man and will likely stay that way.

My experience gluing tubulars for ‘cross, however, has completely changed the way I glue my road tubulars. Flatting one of my tubular race wheels in February and discovering that it had been held on by a woefully inadequate quantity of 3M Fastak, further convinced me to re-glue my race wheels this year.

I recently posted a question about tubular tires on the blog of Ben Oliver, chief race mechanic of Team Bissell. Ben’s blog is a great first-hand report of the “best practices” of pro race mechanic, done in a cool Q&A format.

I asked him: What type of glue do you use, and how do you remove excess glue from the braking surface of carbon rims? I’m just looking for some “best practices” among pro mechanics.

His answer was comprehensive and really helpful. Best of all, he pointed me to one of the few (maybe only) independent scientific studies on the performance of tubular glue on carbon rims.

[The relevant section of the study is found in Part 7 in the online bicycle research articles]

The bottom line? Vittoria Mastik One. That’s nice to hear, especially since it’s consistent with my own research and with the practices of the best mechanic in the DC area, Greg Thomas over at Conte’s in Arlington.

In gluing up my race wheels for this year, I followed the same practices described in my earlier post about gluing ‘cross tubulars. If its’ good enough for ‘cross, with low pressures and lots of shear forces, it’s more than good for road riding, where the tire is held onto the rim predominantly by air pressure.

Drop me a note in the comments, and I’ll send you a copy of the tubular tire study.