New Toys

Retail therapy does not only apply (in my opinion) to women and clothes. In order to cheer myself up a while ago at work I may have persuaded myself that some new wheels were in order :-) Lightweight Ventoux 240's to be precise. And they are tubulars.

Now I'd never ridden tubs before. My clinchers are HED Ardennes which claim to ride more like tubs due to their wider rims (which allow the tyre to sit flatter and less "pinched"). The reviews agree with this claim and I can say that are more comfortable than other clinchers I've ridden. But here is the thing - they are not even in the same ballpark for comfort, feel, handling etc as the tubs I now have. I obviously cannot say whether this is because of the wheel themselves or the tubs, but the difference has really surprised me. And I don't mean "oh, these are nice, glad I spent that cash after all" kind of difference, I mean a "bloody hell, really, are you kidding, this is unbelievable" kind of difference.

Now its well known that tubs have some reasonably sized draw backs and I'm not ignoring them. But I do have some plans. Geax Pit Stop being one of them, which is a compressed air + latex glue canister that will fix (fill) up to 1mm punctures (so a "normal" size puncture). Maybe this isn't as guaranteed as having many spare inner tubes and reduces the ability to use the wheels a little, but believe me the ride quality makes it so so tempting, and worth the effort to find ways around the usual tub related problems. They will certainly be going to la Marmotte where I am trusting that the smooth French roads won't cause me a problem.

On a side note I have had to take off one of the tubs already due to a 5mm long tear straight through the tyre. While this was rather annoying (and will be quite costly) I am fairly certain it would have ended a ride on clinchers too, as a new inner tube would have just burst through the rip - and I've never carried a spare tyre with me. But having gone through the process of removing a tub, and experiencing the valve being stuck in the rim from the glue, I'm really not convinced that I could change one of these at the side of the road even with a spare tub in my pocket. So there are some drawbacks, and the tubs will NOT being going to the Fred Whitton as I'm still feeling my way with them and have not sussed out all the issues.

But having done a little climbing on the new wheels (see picture, they really are "lightweight") and my God they're quick :-)