Tubs, are they worth it?

oli2001

for general riding and several sportives a year? are the advantages (if any?) over clinchers worth the worry/hassle. Do riders carry a spare tub around like carrying a spare tube for a clincher. Can you put sealant in them? like tubeless tyres to prevent flats?

danowat

In a word, no.

Akirasho

oli2001 wrote:

for general riding and several sportives a year? are the advantages (if any?) over clinchers worth the worry/hassle.

... probably not. One advantage that is spawn'd from a disadvantage is that in a pinch (no pun intended), you can ride them flat, albeit at a much slower speed. Since they're glue'd on, they don't require air pressure to remain seated to the rim.

Do riders carry a spare tub around like carrying a spare tube for a clincher.

... some do, but then you're kinda defeating another "advantage"... weight.

Can you put sealant in them? like tubeless tyres to prevent flats?

... many can accept some form of sealang (Tufo makes some... some tubulars come with removable valve cores that makes this fairly easy to do) but you might still get a flat...

Hmmm, I guess the other response is correct... in a word... no.

racingcondor

If you're the sort of person who never punctures then perhaps.

The main reason to use tubs though is that you are unwilling to compromise on your race wheels, have bought yourself some carbon tubular wheels (shaving off a couple of hundread g compared to the clincher versions) and as a result are using them on either closed circuits (crits) or road races where you really want the marginal advantages.

For normal road use I (personally) wouldn't ride the lightest and best tyres anyway so the trade off for puncture resistance would mean they weren't worth it (to me). Sealant can help with this but I hear tends to dry out over time so loses it's effectiveness as well as adding weight to the wheelset that you've just spent a lot of money on for those extra few grammes shaved off...

oli2001

cheers fellas. thanks for your thoughts

APIII

If you opt for tubs then you open up a few options in terms of wheels. I've got light wheels (lightweight standards) and beefy wheels (ambrosio nemesis) that both have their advantages over clinchers. The lightweights are just incredibly light and stif, weighing just over a kilo. The Ambrosio are a really robust rim that are great for cyclocross and rough roads (no pinch flats). Whether they are right for you depends on how well you learn to change a flat (not something I've ever had to do on the road myself) and if you can afford them as quality tubs are not cheap.

cougie

Not in my experience. I puncture far more on them than I do on normal tyres.