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Date: 03 Jun 2007 14:45:30
From: still me
Subject: Off road - Tubies or Clinchers?
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Wondering about the benefits of both. I'm thinking of building up a set of wheels for my vintage ride to go off road a bit. Not mountaineering, but maybe some reasonable dirt trails, no racing. I'm a tubie guy, but I'm thinking that my vintage Mavic rim are at high risk, even with cyclocross tires. Some of the clincher rims I've seen look to be much heavier duty. OTOH, I've heard a few stories about the clincher guys having issues with pinch flats when the going gets rough. Not sure how common that is. Opinions ?
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Date: 03 Jun 2007 14:23:32
From: Qui si parla Campagnolo
Subject: Re: Off road - Tubies or Clinchers?
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On Jun 3, 8:45 am, still me <wheeled...@yahoo.com > wrote: > Wondering about the benefits of both. > > I'm thinking of building up a set of wheels for my vintage ride to go > off road a bit. Not mountaineering, but maybe some reasonable dirt > trails, no racing. > > I'm a tubie guy, but I'm thinking that my vintage Mavic rim are at > high risk, even with cyclocross tires. Some of the clincher rims I've > seen look to be much heavier duty. OTOH, I've heard a few stories > about the clincher guys having issues with pinch flats when the going > gets rough. Not sure how common that is. > > Opinions ? Clinchers, nice fat ones with enough air in them.
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Date: 03 Jun 2007 15:08:46
From: * * Chas
Subject: Re: Off road - Tubies or Clinchers?
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"Qui si parla Campagnolo" <peter@vecchios.com > wrote in message news:1180905812.039877.96500@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > On Jun 3, 8:45 am, still me <wheeled...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Wondering about the benefits of both. > > > > I'm thinking of building up a set of wheels for my vintage ride to go > > off road a bit. Not mountaineering, but maybe some reasonable dirt > > trails, no racing. > > > > I'm a tubie guy, but I'm thinking that my vintage Mavic rim are at > > high risk, even with cyclocross tires. Some of the clincher rims I've > > seen look to be much heavier duty. OTOH, I've heard a few stories > > about the clincher guys having issues with pinch flats when the going > > gets rough. Not sure how common that is. > > > > Opinions ? > > Clinchers, nice fat ones with enough air in them. > > No balls - no glory... ;-) Chas.
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Date: 03 Jun 2007 10:54:39
From: * * Chas
Subject: Re: Off road - Tubies or Clinchers?
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"still me" <wheeledBob@yahoo.com > wrote in message news:8jk563hc8ugoo84adkdhu35fsqr009gfn7@4ax.com... > Wondering about the benefits of both. > > I'm thinking of building up a set of wheels for my vintage ride to go > off road a bit. Not mountaineering, but maybe some reasonable dirt > trails, no racing. > > I'm a tubie guy, but I'm thinking that my vintage Mavic rim are at > high risk, even with cyclocross tires. Some of the clincher rims I've > seen look to be much heavier duty. OTOH, I've heard a few stories > about the clincher guys having issues with pinch flats when the going > gets rough. Not sure how common that is. > > Opinions ? In 1976 I built up a set of off road/cyclocross sewup wheels and used them on the mountain trails of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado for about 3 years. I used the heaviest Mavic rim I could get for the front and a 480-520g AVA rim on the back with 4x 14ga spokes on 36H Shimano 600 LF hubs. They are still very usable after hundreds of hard off road miles including some jumping. I replaced the QR rear axle with a Zeus track axle (10mm x 1 - same thread as Shimano) because I was bending the QR ones and getting wheel suck too often. I Ran D'Alessandro, Milremo, Wolber and Continental cyclocross sewups and only had about 3-4 flats including 2 pinch flats - they can happen with sewups too. I used clinchers with 36H Super Champion Mod 58 700c rims for really rocky trails and roads. This was long before MTB tires and knobbies were available. Wolber used to make 700c x 35 tires for "civilian" use on the Pave Region in France and Belgium. They were really cheap tires with an antique design thread and sidewall plus a poor quality cotton casing but they were the biggest tires I could find. I had more flats with those than with the sewups. They were designed for 45 PSI max. To answer you question, it depends on the type of terrain you plan to ride on. If it's mostly dirt and hard pack and you live in an area where goatheads are not a problem then by all means go with sewups. The ride is wonderful plus there's a much bigger choice of cyclocross sewups available. If you are going to be riding on rocks a lot then go with clinchers. There are some cyclocross clinchers available but they are mainly built for dirt courses. Here's a picture of one of the 700c MTB bikes I built back in the day (lugged heavy gage 531) and the kind of areas were we rode: http://www.southlakesgroup.org.uk/roughstuffinginamerica.html Chas.
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Date: 03 Jun 2007 09:41:05
From: landotter
Subject: Re: Off road - Tubies or Clinchers?
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On Jun 3, 9:45 am, still me <wheeled...@yahoo.com > wrote: > Wondering about the benefits of both. > > I'm thinking of building up a set of wheels for my vintage ride to go > off road a bit. Not mountaineering, but maybe some reasonable dirt > trails, no racing. > > I'm a tubie guy, but I'm thinking that my vintage Mavic rim are at > high risk, even with cyclocross tires. Some of the clincher rims I've > seen look to be much heavier duty. OTOH, I've heard a few stories > about the clincher guys having issues with pinch flats when the going > gets rough. Not sure how common that is. > > Opinions ? Build yourself up a couple Alex Adventurer hoops. Under $25 each and strong. The only real drawback is that they're too wide to use with those goofy Tufo tubular-clinchers. I've been incorporating five miles of grassy access road on my daily ride. 36H Alex rims with IRC Tandem tires. I run 80psi in the rear and 50-60psi up front with no problems whatsoever. Never a flat, and wheels are as straight as the day I trued them up last November.
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