Please Help With Tire and Wheel Questions

[Scrench]

Hi All,

I was hoping some of you would share your experience with me. I'm just coming off of riding/racing Reynolds DV46T UL wheels with Conti Sprinters because a friend told me they had great longevity and I could use them daily. I never really liked the Sprinters (or the Reynolds) because they feel hard, stiff, and slow, even with only 100 psi, but I ride a lot by myself in the middle of nowhere and carry a can of Pitstop with me, so I wanted some reliability. They felt like as soon as I stopped pedaling they would start to slow down, and I actually had to pedal downhill to hold my position in the pack, whereas I remember a set of 202's with Vittoria Corsa CX Evo's I rented one Senior Olympics, had me braking to not run into anyone when going downhill. I weigh 150lb. kitted out. I also had Vittoria Corsa CX Evo's on my Reynolds before the Conti's (because of the rental set), but crashed my brains out on a wet day when they lost traction, and never looked back at them, although as I remember, they seemed to roll OK, just felt a little squirrley.

Today, I bought a new (used) set of Zipp 303 Firecrest wheels off of ebay which are coming with Schwalbe 1's taped on with the new French tape (forgot the name), which is part of the reason I'm willing to stick with tubulars. The new tape makes changing them look easy, without the resistance penalty previous tapes incurred. I've always glued, but don't ever want that hassle again. I was getting ready to buy Zipp 202 Firecrest clinchers for their convenience, better tire selection with lower rolling resistance, and lower rim weight, but changed my mind because I figured I could get less weight and better aero from the 303's if I stayed with tubulars. I love to climb/attack the short rolling hills we have here in Louisiana. (BTW, I can still return the 303's for the 202's if you have an opinion on that, or the whole tubular vs clincher thing.)

Sorry to ramble, but I have a lot to consider right now. I currently ride a Cannondale CAAD 10, sold my Cervelo S3 because the CAAD just seems to put every watt to the ground with no flex (better then the EVO's IMHO), although the S3 slipped the air better. Of course I'm looking for the Nirvana combination of attributes for a tubular, but for reference I have to say that I really enjoy riding Michelin Pro 4 Service Course (@ 87psi) and Conti 4000S (@100PSI) clinchers which both feel way better then the Sprinters. I would have loved to try the new Conti 4000S II, the Specialized Turbo Cotton, and the Michelin Power Competition.

Gaaa... just writing about it makes me wish I had gone with the clinchers, which shows you how confused I am at the moment. I still believe less rotating weight at the rims is going to get me up hills faster, and better aero will help everywhere.

Anyway, sorry to bore you with my decisions, but if you can shed any light on any of this, your experiences and advice will be much appreciated.

Thank You,
Richard Harris
Baton Rouge, LA

[wheelsONfire]

Reading this makes me wonder. If you feel you should have went for clichers, you should do that.
Make a decision and stick to it. If it feels wrong, it might be wrong!?
Now it seems you try to persuade yourself that tubular is what you should go for.
Ultimately it's up to you. But i think you should just listen to how you feel.

[Scrench]

Well a couple of things have happened. I did get the Zipp 303 Tubular set, but immediately hated them. According to my calibrated scale they were heavier then Zipp advertised, wider then I thought they would be, and the rear hub felt like it was almost binding when spinning the wheel in my hand (it was a used set, should have been broken in by now). So I sent them back. Now I have a set of 202 Firecrest Carbon Clinchers coming, and couldn't be more excited. Ordered a set of Continental GP 4000S II's with Michelin A1 Latex tubes, but had to get them from Ireland at Chain Reaction because I couldn't find them in the States for some reason. Glad I did, as their tires sell by the pair, pretty cheap compare to here. I feel much better about going with what has been arguably described by many test reviews as the best all-around wheelset made. I'm going to try to ignore the weight increase over my Reynolds wheels, and hope that everyone is right, that weight doesn't really matter that much until you are on a greater than 9 degree hill. There aren't many of those around here, and the ones that are, are pretty short, 50m or less. The difference should only be about 180 grams total for the set anyway. I'll update once I've gotten a chance to try them out.

Thanks for the reply wheelsONfire, I took your advice seriously, and it helped guide me towards what I've done.

Scrench

[helldiver]

Try the vittoria magic mastik, seriously. Even less hassle then tape in my opinion. I run exclusively tubulars for more then one year (~8000km) and I really don't understand the "tubular hassle" talk. Through the whole time I had 2 slow punctures (both sealed with injection of Stan's sealant through valve stem), and I never had to take off tyre because of the puncture, the only time i changed the the tyres was because I wanted to and it took me 1hour together with cleaning the old rims, next day I was ready to ride. But when I was descending the Stelvio pass with cars in front of me (so braking much more then i otherwise would), I didn't have any thoughts about latex tube overheating and rupturing in my carbon clincher rim, so I enjoyed it much more.