As Keepers Tour crossed from dream to reality and routes over the cobblestones of Northern Europe were sketched out, with it came the familiar tingling in my fingertips and uneasy sensation at the base of my spine as my mind starts its irrevocable journey towards categorizing as mandatory an unnecessary indulgence. I was going to need a wheelset and tubular tires that were up to the job.
The folklore goes a long way towards that justification; Paris-Roubaix is the race where every trick of the trade is exploited to deliver riders safely to the finish. Equipment which usually carries riders for a season or more finds itself in the trash heap after a single day on in Hell – maybe good enough for training but certainly not be trusted for another race. Special wheels are built, and only the strongest tubulars are glued to the rims. Aldo Gios, De Vlaeminck’s mechanic, is said to have aged his tires in his wine cellar to allow the rubber to harden, making them more resistent to punctures.
Ignoring the possibility that there may be some difference in strength, speed, or skill with which the Pros ride over the Cobbles, it didn’t take me long to determine that it wasn’t so much a matter of wanting a set of tubulars for Keepers Tour, but that it was indeed my obligation. I have a responsibility, after all, to the attendees of trip that I not fall off my machine and bash my head open on a cobblestone. Messy, certainly, but it may also frame the event in a somewhat negative light, and I think we’d all like the opportunity to do this again some time. The only way to assure I don’t suffer some catastrophic equipment failure and jeopardize the trip was to build a set of wheels based on the same components the Pros select for the purpose, and line them in the same rubber they choose. Logical, really.
The seduction of symbols was the first phase, followed quickly by the art of building wheels. The final step was to procure the right tires for the job. FMB is perhaps the most revered name in hand-made tubular tires; inspection of photos of Roubaix will reveal the pale yellow or green sidewalls of the FMB Paris-Roubaix tire on many of the wheels bouncing over the cobbles – often rebadged on order to satisfy sponsorship obligations.
I needed a set, naturally.
The tires were ordered in December, as from January onward Francois (of Francois-Marie Boyaux from which FMB takes its name) becomes overburdened with orders from the teams riding Roubaix and indicated he wouldn’t have time to squeeze in an order from a nobody such as myself. They arrived in February, at which point they displaced a few bottles of wine to age in the darkest corner of our basement which doubles as our wine cellar. Having mounted another set of tubs on the wheels in order to bash the bejezus out of the wheels so as to make myself a little less certain that I buggered the wheel building process, they had to wait until this past week to be mounted.
They have not yet been ridden, but they certainly look the business.
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Gluing on a tubular tire is a glorious study in patience and settles beautifully in the intersection between art, science, and ritual. And the glue smells distressingly fantastic.
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@Dan_R
Thanks for the recommendation, I only asked @Frank because I've got Nemesis rims as well.
@Dan_R
Naturellement, monsieur! Makes for an easy mounting, for sure. Besides, these are so incredibly supple, it's hard to imagine them ever being hard to get on. The spare is aging/resting as we speak.
I emailed you about your wheels. I'm sure we can work something out.
Frank, now that you shelled out all the money on your new pair of tubular wheels and tubulars, what are you going to do when (not if, when) you get a puncture which a sealant won't be able to fix, mid-ride during the Keeper's tour? How many of your spare tubular wheels will be carried by your team support car? :)
@Chris
Well, I had to switch back to the regular Campa brakes and ditch the TRP's for a second time due to a clearance issue on the back. So I'm back to standard Record brakes/pads, though I spotted some all-weather pads in the same color as the sidewalls which I simply must have. New Rule: always match your brake pads to your sidewalls.
As to MJ - you may notice A Sunday in Hell playing in the background of my photos. This is necessary any time one is wrapping themselves ever closer in the warmth of La Vie.
@The Tashkent Error
Believe me, mate, I've been tortured, waking up in the middle of the night in a pool of cold sweat to the vision of my wheels hitting the cobbles and immediately going flat. I have one identical spare waiting already, with the promise of a second to be overnighted to Kemmel should it be required.
@frank
Too much. C'est n'est pas bon.
@frank
Nein! Koolstop wet-weather pads (perfect for the PNW) are a strange orange/salmon pink color. No way am I going to match my tires to those, or use standard black pads that seem to turn to mush when combined together with water and a downhill.
You're looking pimp in the Campa cap turned backwards and the Adi flip flops though, so I'll excuse that weird rule as coming from huffing too much glue.
@mcsqueak
Oh yeah, the salmons will be GTG.
Reference your email, relpied with a bit of over explanation, yet lack of real response to "what do you have in mind." Note my brief follow up, lol.
FMB Compétition CX Coton 22.5 to test on GP4s -- soon. And thanx for a dutiful effort on tyres Frank.
FMB Record Coton 22 -- a conducive test on the GP4s (alloy)