Tubular - start help

[ProudDaddy]

I posted a video a few weeks back, not too in depth but the very basics to gluing.

http://youtu.be/DCvSa5_RwyU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Surprised to hear you do not glue the tire! I'm no expert but have been gluing my wheels for a few years now and have always glued both tire and rim. I have never come across anyone or any info recommending to not glue the tire.

I know everyone has their own techniques, but I agree! I may have missed it, but I don't recall hearing anything about pre-stretching the tire at full pressure (for at least 24 hours). Something else I'd highly recommend to any tubie virgin. FWIW, I use 3 thin coats of glue on both tire and wheel, applied about 24 hours apart. It's a longer process but I race in all conditions, and better safe than sorry imo. May be overkill considering how hard it is to remove a tire, had to pry one off with a giant flat head screwdriver last night, but that just gives me one less thing to worry about on the road. I've seen rolled tubies in local and Pro races and always wonder what glueing process was used.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

I read about the Tufo tape and glueing/non-glueing. What I was looking for was what people do if they have multiple punctures on a trip, and what a good starter wheelset is.

Never happened so far as I'm not sure what I'd do either.... I guess the best suggestion would be to take a mobile along with you and keep your fingers crossed....

There are two things you'll never see me do however: put sealant in a brandnew tubular as a preventive and the second one is use tape on my wheels.

The first one pretty much ruins a perfectly good tub right out of the gate and if it prevents any puncture at all it's only going to do so for about six months at best. After that that sealant becomes just dead weight sitting where your wheel is at its heaviest already.
I'll skip the tape episode since we discussed that ad nauseam already.

Ciao,

[krusty]

... if it prevents any puncture at all it's only going to do so for about six months at best.

Your tires last more than 6 months? You're not riding enough.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

I posted a video a few weeks back, not too in depth but the very basics to gluing.

http://youtu.be/DCvSa5_RwyU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Surprised to hear you do not glue the tire! I'm no expert but have been gluing my wheels for a few years now and have always glued both tire and rim. I have never come across anyone or any info recommending to not glue the tire.

I know everyone has their own techniques, but I agree! I may have missed it, but I don't recall hearing anything about pre-stretching the tire at full pressure (for at least 24 hours). Something else I'd highly recommend to any tubie virgin. FWIW, I use 3 thin coats of glue on both tire and wheel, applied about 24 hours apart. It's a longer process but I race in all conditions, and better safe than sorry imo. May be overkill considering how hard it is to remove a tire, had to pry one off with a giant flat head screwdriver last night, but that just gives me one less thing to worry about on the road. I've seen rolled tubies in local and Pro races and always wonder what glueing process was used.

Sorry to say so but people should not develop their own techniques. Most people that do so either try to cut corners or do things they just do not understand why.

That said you should always put at the very least one coat on the rim and one on the base tape. That's the bare minimum for a contact adhesive such as rim cement to work in theory. A single coat on either one of the surfaces to be stuck together will not work.

Now do not get me wrong, I am by no means saying anyone should use just a coat on the rim and one on the base tape. No way.

So why several coats on the rim you ask?
Simply put, the rim bed's surface is pretty smooth be that for an alloy rim or for a carbon one. The problem is less pronounced on an alloy rim since you can rough it up a bit, no harm done.
Not so on a carbon rim as you can easily damage carbon fibre which is what provides structural integrity in the first place. So by putting a thin coat on first that you let completely cure you create a layer on the rim bed that will serve as an anchor for the next one and so on.
It's the last, top layer on either rim or base tape that will, by means of its agents/solvents, reactivate the underlying layer allowing for the final bond to take place.

Knowing all this you will now also understand that there's no need whatsoever to put several coats of cement on that base tape. None whatsoever.
As a matter of fact, putting several coats of cement on the base tape as you did on the rim bed will work against you in more ways than one.
First of all you increase the risk of tearing off the base tape from the casing and secondly you're base tape will become so cluttered with spots of hardened cement that repairing that tubular the old fashioned (but by far the better) way nigh impossible.

Furthermore, if being very hard to remove a tubular would be indicative of how well it is glued on then we'd use different kinds of rim cement. Ones that actually achieve a bond that makes a tubular impossible to remove short of cutting it open. Some pros do so in order to lower Crr even further but then they do not pay for their tubs, or do they?

A well formulated rim cement (most are fine nowadays) will allow you to achieve what should be achieved without making it all too hard to remove the tyre provided you proceed according to the manufacturers' instructions. Deviate too far and develop your own way and you will run into trouble at some point or another.
The instructions printed on a can of Vittoria Mastik One are very clear and unambiguous. Follow those and you can be pretty certain the job will be fine covering every single aspect of using tubulars for what they are intended for.
The engineers who developped it have thought of everything imaginable, from your safety to making sure that you can actually remove the tub from the rim, not risking rolling a tub in every imaginable combination of circumstances.
Every single aspect is covered.

It may all seem straightforward and simple to most people but it involves a lot of thinking and I must say that it's absolutely awesome how they actually managed to formulate a glue that ends up covering all those aspects. Provided it is applied as it should that is.....

Ciao,