Sunday, July 19, 2009

Tubie Adventures

So I broke a spoke on my carbon tubie rear wheel back in April at the Fayetteville Stage Race (the climax of my worst race weekend this year). I decided to teach myself to rebuild the wheel, after much trial and error finally had it right. Now thanks to my new Park Tool Tension Meter (love the Park Tools), I'm confident enough to actually ride it. While this was all happening I managed to put a nice big puncture in my front carbon tubie in the parking lot before the last Britton's TT. Time for some tubie work.

1 new Vittoria Open Corsa CX tubie came in and it was time to glue. But wait, the new tubie didn't have a removable valve so it wouldn't work with the valve extenders. This project was growing from a quick glue to something more complicated. I pulled the tubies off my low profile back-up tubie wheelset and glued them onto the carbon tubies and glued the new tubies onto the backup set. This all worked fine except that now my carbon tubies have black & yellow Vittoria Open Corsa's on them. Not very pro but oh well, you work with what you got. So I spent this afternoon brushing Continental Rim Cement (the container warns that "vapors may cause drowsiness and dizziness) onto tubies and mounting them on the rims. Gluing tubies truely makes you feel like a legit wrench. Now I'm all ready for the final push of the road race season.

4 comments:

  1. you are such a nerd. but that's why I love you. :-) If I weren't moving to DE, I'd have you build me a bike. One that can go fast. hehe.

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  2. Is the tubie the wheel or the rubber? I kinda lost track in the second paragraph... guess I'm not up on all the lingo.

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  3. the tubie is the type of rubber (as opposed to a clincher). it's close cousin is the tubie wheel which is a wheel that is tubie specific.

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