One of the things that strikes me most about the English is they don’t appear to have developed any sort of “inner dialog”. It seems anything that passes through the brain is parlayed directly to the tongue; if the thought being expressed is an insult to you, it will generally include a query for confirmation: “You’re not terribly clever, are you?” At least the English have developed the sophistication to keep their voices down which is a skill English children apparently don’t develop until adolescence. I recently spent some time on a small aircraft sitting opposite a young English girl who loudly narrated the progress of her camera’s zoom functionality which, due to the plane’s low cruising altitude, meant it was pointed out the window and in constant operation for the duration of the two-hour flight.
While I don’t consider myself a savage, I also don’t possess the dignity of soft speech; my voice carries as it is, let alone if I’m enthusiastic or angry, which between the two covers about 99.93% of my existance. I’m not sure why people place value on speaking quietly or, for that matter, having any sort of inner dialog. I think this is why I get on well with the English: I spend most of my life trying to sort out what the living beings around me are thinking; if they all had a readout on their forehead or spoke every thought that ever crossed their mind out loud, it would save me loads of time which would free me up for riding my bike.
Riding tubular tires is kind of like riding the tire equivalent of the English, except less cold. Riding tubular tires on deep-section rims is like riding the tire equivalent of English pre-adolescents. (I realized during proofing that I am getting dangerously close to pedaphile territory; this analogy isn’t as clever as it seems, is it? New paragraph, then.)
A well-made, hand-stitched tubular tire is a revelation to ride. The first time I rode tubs, it was aboard a set of Vredesteins which are excellent tires. I was immediately struck by how responsive they were, and how well they cornered. Then I rode a set of FMB Paris-Roubaixs and was struck by all those same things except they also felt like two cushions under my rims, carrying my smoothly from one imperfection to the next as I floated over the tarmac. The most striking thing was the sound: a hypnotic hum that brings the mind inexorably closer to becoming One with The V, the hum sooths and makes you more alert in equal measure; its pulsation reveals the smoothness or imperfections of your stroke with every revolution of the pedals. Clinchers can do much of the same, particularly when ridden with latex tubes, but nothing compares to a well-made tubular to sing the praises or holler the frailties of your stroke.
The Hum whispers to me when I’m climbing well; it shouts at me when I’m suffering worst (read: climbing badly), reminding me to stop pedalling squares and focus on the fluidity of the stroke. The more V is channeled into the pedals, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a Magnificent Stroke. It also hints that its easier to push round smoothly at a low cadence than it in in a high cadence; track racers who can turn round at 160rpm while delivering full power astound me.
The Hum has brought me closer to a Magnificent Stroke. It calls out when I stray, it soothes when I am near. I seek it, I embrace it. Always.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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@minion
Oh you're a pussy. When I was still using 19 mm I used to pump up to at least 140 psi, on my weak days.
Thats it. I'm maxing out my floor pump to get 160psi in there, cutting the chamois out of my shorts and going for a 6 hour ride off road. THEN we'll see who's what and by how much.
Caveats: My first road bike was a Cannondale R1000. I prefer alloy bikes to carbon, and like harsh riding bikes.
I'm 90kgs, and have found 23/25mm tires squirm when cornering in a disconcerting way. Don't get that with tubs or these, I think because the casing has less give in it.
I only ride this bike once a week, to the crit track, round the crit track, and home.. These tires are gone come winter.
I also suspect I like getting punched in the gooch. My experience with these tires would definitely agree with that.
There's been a bit of dscussion about old rim building with very light weight rims in the shop recently. With rims being so stiff these days, it's no surprise that riders are going wider to get more comfort. Coupled with the super stiff frames riders have to ride, its no wonder they'll take the widest products available to them.
(Rant on)
WRT light wheels, the comparisons are often quite spurious - spoke count goes right down, often spokes are bladed rather than round, without a cross pattern, rim depth changes, so aero properties change, they hold speed better and a lighter bike just takes less effort to keep going. Too many variables change to pin the whole thing on just the weight of the rim, especially with modern marketing which wants to sell you a $4000 wheelset with as many easily quotable, as-significant-as-possible advantages over a "traditional" box section whilst as possible.
I actually laughed at a triathlete who told me his Mad Fibre wheels saved 90 seconds over the wheels that came on the bike. 90 seconds in a wind tunnel at a set yaw over 32 spoke box section clinchers which is the standard control for wheel tests - not the wheels that came with the bike he had. If it's 90 seconds at 250 watts over 40km, then fine, but that isn't what wind tunnels (where these bullshit numbers come from) test for. And it certainly isn't disclosed in their test protocols how quickly the advantages erode if you're not Tony Martin holding 400 watts for an hour.
(Rant over).
Oh what a shame. I wrote a couple of very long, witty and frankly rather brilliant posts and they seem to have disappeared.
Short version, is the 19mm tires are on the crit bike; I'm 90kgs, and they don't squirm under cornering like wider tires do and are quick as all get out.
Triathletes love quoting people who work at Zipp, and comparing wheels of different weights is silly because too many variables change when you compare wheels (spoke count, lacing pattern, rim depth) to pick out wheel weight as the one determining factor.
The rest of my posts was, blah blah blah something people with poor taste might find funny, blah blah 90 seconds faster blah blah bullshit.
@TommyTubolare
That's it, I'm getting 200psi in there, cutting the chamois out of my shorts, and going for a six hour ride on a railway line riding between the tracks. Then we will see who's who and what's what.
@TommyTubolare I'm not claiming comfort doesn't exist. I'm simply showing examples of blind comparisons that showed that people couldn't determine which frame is "more comfortable", but they could determine changes in comfort caused by a change of a few psi of air in the tyres.
Why? Simple. Any dampening of road impacts is basically a spring movement, so any comfort in the bike system is essentially a series of springs. The weakest spring is usually the one that does the biggest work - and on a bike, that's the tyre. So frame differences become negligible - the list of weaker springs includes the saddle, too. Investing in comfort is best done in the form of a good, supple tyre. Isn't this where the thread started?
200g of rotating mass is not insignificant, and ceteris paribus, lighter is never a bad thing. But if you do the maths, the watt savings of a more aero wheel will outweigh the savings of a lighter wheel on almost every terrain: The break-even point is an average gradient of 5-6%, so unless you're at a hillclimb - a good medium-depth tub will out-do any shallow wheel.
The fact that the public is still stuck in the weight-weenie paradigm plays perfectly into the hands the industry ("just add lightness" is always a good recipe to charge 1000Eur extra for that slightly lighter frame). Aero is hard to grasp, you can't feel it when you lift the bike, and it often results in ugly frames - all of which make a bike less appealing to the customer.
P.S: Josh is no longer a Zipp engineer, but the man behind the revival of Silca. Now that's some reverence-worthy stuff.
@tessar
That is a great Josh Poertner article. I've always felt it's impossible to compare bike unless the tire pressure and tires are exactly the same, at a start. Also, I've never been able to tell the difference between how my tubeless 25s and my sew-up 25s corner. But I can feel how the lightness of the carbon tubs help in climbing and 50mm profile goes faster especially downhill.
That is saying quite a lot right there. It's how it looks.
@tessar Chapeau! Thanx for a reminder to go to the new SILCA. I tore the page out of Peloton magazine (permitted) when I saw the write up on the SILCA SuperPista Ultimate.