Recommend a racing tyre...

dahat

Looking for a 25mm tyre that won't blow sidewalls etc...
Normally use Tufo Calibra Plus but I'm thinking a change this season.

CramCycle

I am going to jump in and say Conti GP4000S II with Latex tubes. Decent puncture protection and low rolling resistance.

eeeee

Do the latex tubes make much of a difference?

OP I have raced vittoria rubino pros, xaffiro pros, conti ultra sports and gp4000 ii s, and the gp4000's are the best I've tried.

CramCycle

nee wrote: »

Do the latex tubes make much of a difference?
.

I would not have paid much attention to it but a clubmate sent me a link to https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

Apparently it losers the wattage required a bit. To me it would make no difference but to people at the higher end it might. About 1.5 to 2 watts depending on the pressure.

If it makes a difference at A4 or A3, then it's probably not the real issue.

thekooman

gp4000s without a doubt.

dahat

Looks like it's GP4000s for me then.

Is there sidewall issues with them though? Or is that just "normal" failure rates?

Idleater

dahat wrote: »

Looks like it's GP4000s for me then.

I'll suggest Vittoria open corsa/corsa g+. Also Veloflex. Just to be different. They are (with latex tubes) the closest to tubular I have come across. Wear quickly but you did say race tyre.

Plastik

Idleater wrote: »

I'll suggest Vittoria open corsa/corsa g+. Also Veloflex. Just to be different. They are (with latex tubes) the closest to tubular I have come across. Wear quickly but you did say race tyre.

What sort of mileage are you seeing from the Corsa G+? Stuck a set on this week, life's too short for crap tyres (and crap coffee).

MojoMaker

Vittoria Open Corsa even better than GP4Ks. Also worth a look at Schwalbe Ones - cheaper and with lower rolling resistance than the Contis.

Idleater

Plastik wrote: »

What sort of mileage are you seeing from the Corsa G+? Stuck a set on this week, life's too short for crap tyres (and crap coffee).

For veloflex I started noticing after about 3000 km larger cuts, and replaced the rear at 5000km. I got 8000km out of a front Vittoria open corsa. I currently run corsa+ on my vintage bike so it gets low mileage but high offroad, mud and gravel use.

Interestingly, I stuck Schwalbe One's on my race bike last year - to try something new again, but they don't have the road feel of the Vittoria.

harringtonp

CramCycle wrote: »

I would not have paid much attention to it but a clubmate sent me a link to https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

Apparently it losers the wattage required a bit. To me it would make no difference but to people at the higher end it might. About 1.5 to 2 watts depending on the pressure.

If it makes a difference at A4 or A3, then it's probably not the real issue.

I was a big fan of this type of stuff until riding a Continental Grand Prix TT tyre with a latex tube caused a sidewall blowout and destroyed the carbon wheel rim.

ford2600

harringtonp wrote: »

I was a big fan of this type of stuff until riding a Continental Grand Prix TT tyre with a latex tube caused a sidewall blowout and destroyed the carbon wheel rim.

That and it's not a valid test for real world use.

"All bicycle tires are tested on a rolling resistance test machine with a 77 cm drum and a 120W electric motor. The drum is covered with diamond plate to simulate an average road surface"

WTF is an average road surface

doozerie

nee wrote: »

Do the latex tubes make much of a difference?

Entirely subjective this, but I consider them better in terms of handling. I switched to latex on both my bikes several years ago (23mm on race bike, 25mm on winter bike) and I perceived a noticable improvement in grip. The theory is that, assuming the tyre is flexible enough, it'll conform better to the road surface with latex tubes and therefore give better grip, much like tubulars.

I use the 23mm tubes with 23mm GP 4000S and the 25mm tubes with 25mm GP 4 Seasons, neither of which are really a particularly flexible tyre I would say, but I still perceive an improvement. It could, of course, all be in my head but I've tended to push the bikes harder into bends and the like since using these tubes and so far so good.

The number of punctures I've had with latex tubes has been extremely low too, I think it is 3 in the 5 or 6 years since I completely switched. That's in line with the claim that latex is less prone to being pierced and far less prone to pinch punctures. Getting the tyre pressure "right" helps a lot here too of course so the tubes are only one part of the picture.

Personally though, I won't go back to butyl. There are two downsides though, one being that latex loses air more quickly so you have to top them up regularly (daily, I'd say, but that's not a big deal for me as I'd be doing that with my bikes for every ride anyway). The other is that patching them is probably more tricky than butyl, the recommendation is to use latex patching so basically you cut up an old latex tube for the purpose, and use regular puncture repair adhesive. I've yet to try it though despite having 3 punctured tubes looking forlornly at me for a few years now, I'm a slave to laziness.

harringtonp

And the performance improvement of my Grand Prix TT/Latex combination was noticeable over Michelin Pro3/butyl. I don't think it was the placebo effect either, it seemed in line with numbers quoted on bicyclerollingresistance.

Doozerie mentioned getting pressure right, I may have had it too high which could be why the tyre sidewall went. I was warming up for the nationals in wexford and was set up to get as much out of everything performance wise as I could.

keoclassic

Michelin pro 4 endurance service course,great grip and they last a decent lenght of time, but a little on the pricey side.

CramCycle

Any recommendations on which latex tubes to buy brand wise or are they all pretty much the same?

brownian

My own recent experience (or is it in my head?) is that running tubeless Schwalbe Ones is noticeably faster than running GP4000sIIs. The wheels are slightly deeper (33mm alloy instead of 22mm alloy), and a smidge wider, but I find it hard to imagine there's much of an aero advantage with 11mm of height (and at the cost of about 400g of weight in the wheel too)...so I think it's the tyres. Or all in my head. But if you want an excuse to go tubeless...

CramCycle

Whats the width of your wheels, is there a difference?

doozerie

CramCycle wrote: »

Any recommendations on which latex tubes to buy brand wise or are they all pretty much the same?

All of my 23mm tubes are Michelin (green ones, easy enough on the eye), while all of my 25mm tubes are Vittoria (a largely indescribable salmon pink/vomit colour which does nothing to eliminate from your mind the fact that latex is widely used for condoms).

On the plus side, the 25mm ones encourage rapid replacement of a punctured tube at the side of the road - you don't want people asking why you are storing large condoms in your tyre, so you want to get them installed and out of sight as quickly as possible.

Colour aside, I've been very happy with both brands, I ended up with two brands simply because they were the only ones available in their respective sizes at the time that were not crazy expensive. I've seen latex tubes online for mad prices, but I've always found the above ones for in or around 10euro or so each.

Oh, and while some people are happy to do so, I avoid using 23mm latex tubes in 25mm tyres, latex doesn't have the same degree of stretch as butyl so I'd be concerned that 23mm ones were more liable to fail if inflated to 25mm.

...actually the Vittoria's are available in 23mm for €10.99 each from SwimCycleRun, they are out of stock of the 25mm at the moment: LINK

Edit: Note that those are 51mm valves, I happily use them in standard shallow rims but if I remember correctly the Michelins are available in shorter valve length.

harringtonp

brownian wrote: »

My own recent experience (or is it in my head?) is that running tubeless Schwalbe Ones is noticeably faster than running GP4000sIIs. The wheels are slightly deeper (33mm alloy instead of 22mm alloy), and a smidge wider, but I find it hard to imagine there's much of an aero advantage with 11mm of height (and at the cost of about 400g of weight in the wheel too)...so I think it's the tyres. Or all in my head. But if you want an excuse to go tubeless...

Its definitely NOT in your head. If tubular didn't exist the pro peloton would be all over tubeless Schwalbe Pro One

crosstownk

I see latex tubes being discussed and as it happens I was looking at them on CRC recently.

€7.99 for the Michelin tubes with 3 valve options and €8.49 for the Vittoria.

I though it worthy of a mention.

Kaisr Sose

harringtonp wrote: »

I was a big fan of this type of stuff until riding a Continental Grand Prix TT tyre with a latex tube caused a sidewall blowout and destroyed the carbon wheel rim.

Did Continental not advise against using latex tubes for that very reason in GP4?
(Or was it Schualbe and the One’s?)

harringtonp

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

Did Continental not advise against using latex tubes for that very reason in GP4?
(Or was it Schualbe and the One’s?)

Yes, all in

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=103962217

harringtonp

Funny. Even though I had gone off the idea of using Latex tubes I just put one in an Alexrim rear aluminium clincher.

Got a puncture in the wheel and noticed the hole was on the side facing the rim. Nearly all punctures I have on these rims has been the same situation... the hole is on the rim facing portion.

Anyway I put electric tape on top of the existing rim tape (which isn't worn BTW) and hope that between it and the latex tube (which is supposedly more puncture resistant) will see the end of these types of punctures.

harringtonp

Bit of a tongue and cheek presentation from the lads

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/videos/cycling-tech/clinchers-tubulars-tubeless-tyre-system-fastest-video