tub rims for a track bike

[mig]

i've got a pair of decent ish track hubs sitting in the shed doing not so much. the plan is to build them up into a lightweight pair of outdoor track wheels.

so...tub rims....talk to me

(running the front one with a brake 50% of the time.)

[fastpedaller]

i've got a pair of decent ish track hubs sitting in the shed doing not so much. the plan is to build them up into a lightweight pair of outdoor track wheels.

so...tub rims....talk to me

(running the front one with a brake 50% of the time.)

I'm not sure what is meant by 'outdoor track wheels'. Rims for 'tubs' or tubular tyres are rims that the tyres are glued on to (apologies if you already know this). For general road riding (compared with racing) they are not really suitable because they are expensive and fragile tyres. If using 'heavyweight' tubs to minimise the puncture risk then there is really no benefit in using tubs over wired-on (clincher)tyres. Also what does 'running the front one with a brake 50% of time' mean?
If by 'outdoor track' you are referring to Herne Hill or similar type racing, then yes, sprint rims and tubs are ideal - I'd suggest using Tubasti glue rather than Dunlop type contact adhesive, because Tubasti won't melt in the hot weather (if we get any this year )

[9494arnold]

How many holes in the hubs.
Plus one for what last poster said. Real dedicated Track Sprints are quite fragile and you wouldn't want to put a brake on one.
(In fact a pukka Track Sprint probably wouldn't take a brake block, be too slim)
And a decent pot hole would probably finish them for good.
Road specific are ok for a Brake but the tyres are comparatively big money and if you puncture it's fit a new tyre and throw the old one away. (There used to be firms that would repair them for you but I think they are mostly long gone: I tried my own repair once, what a laugh. Unless you are a proficient seamstress forget it ) (Have a look in the back of Cycling Weekly thats where they used to advertise that repair service)
Have to say tubular tyres aren't worth the faff these days now High Pressure Rims and Tyres are so much better than they used to be .
You can get something like a Mavic Open Pro and a decent tyre/tube (perhaps 18mm) and run it at 140 psi if your wrists can stand it.
The Peleton have drifted away from Narrow tyres and I think are currently mostly on 23mm .
I have a couple of ratty Sprint Rims which i think are road specific (have to check hole count) which would be very cheap for collection in West Midlands if you still feel the need then PM me . I don't intend to post them though, the post office/Hermes are quite proficient at bending rims !
If you intend to go track racing then why not go completely old school,ride the bike with High Pressures and carry your sprints on a custom bracket, change them at the venue and take your brake off. I use to do that when I was younger (and fitter)

[Mike Sales]

Road specific are ok for a Brake but the tyres are big money and if you puncture it's fit a new tyre and throw the old one away. (There used to be firms that would repair them for you but I think they are mostly long gone) (Have a look in the back of Cycling Weekly thats where they used to advertise that service)

I found repairing tubs preferable to forking out for a new one, once I had mastered the not too difficult technique.
I did find them too much more faff than wire-ons in the end.

[9494arnold]

You are obviously a better seamstress than me, Mike

[Mike Sales]

You are obviously a better seamstress than me, Mike

I used well waxed linen thread through the old holes but in such an order that the result looked like a series of Xs, tips to tips. Pulled tight and well overlapped with the original machine stitches this method avoided the S shape I produced at my first attempts.

[thirdcrank]

Also what does 'running the front one with a brake 50% of time' mean?

Some track rims are not made to be used with a brake

[mig]

so i'd ride the wheels on roads on warm dry days using a front brake (as little as possible.)

then

clean the tubs up and use them on an indoor track.

got a set of open pros/miche wheels for the bike already. wanted to use the pair of hubs and i'm a traditional type of guy....sooo thought i'd give tubs a crack (i'm not talking silk ones though)

[Mike Sales]

got a set of open pros/miche wheels for the bike already. wanted to use the pair of hubs and i'm a traditional type of guy....sooo thought i'd give tubs a crack (i'm not talking silk ones though)

I built a pair of wheels for the fixed using Miche track hubs, for road use. The flange on the rear broke away. I was told they were not for the road.

[robc02]

You are obviously a better seamstress than me, Mike

I used well waxed linen thread through the old holes but in such an order that the result looked like a series of Xs, tips to tips. Pulled tight and well overlapped with the original machine stitches this method avoided the S shape I produced at my first attempts.

I always repaired my own tubs. The trick, I found, to avoiding a kink at the repair site was to duplicate the original stitching pattern and use the original holes. I found that cheaper tubs used a single thread and more expensive ones, e.g Clement, used two threads. Either way, when doing this for the first time you need to carefully undo the old stitching, one hole at a time, so that the exact pattern could be identified and replicated. There was also a bit of a knack in getting the correct tension. With a bit of practice, the finished result was as good as the original.

[mig]

got a set of open pros/miche wheels for the bike already. wanted to use the pair of hubs and i'm a traditional type of guy....sooo thought i'd give tubs a crack (i'm not talking silk ones though)

I built a pair of wheels for the fixed using Miche track hubs, for road use. The flange on the rear broke away. I was told they were not for the road.

so now you tell me!!!

[Mike Sales]

You are obviously a better seamstress than me, Mike

I used well waxed linen thread through the old holes but in such an order that the result looked like a series of Xs, tips to tips. Pulled tight and well overlapped with the original machine stitches this method avoided the S shape I produced at my first attempts.

I always repaired my own tubs. The trick, I found, to avoiding a kink at the repair site was to duplicate the original stitching pattern and use the original holes. I found that cheaper tubs used a single thread and more expensive ones, e.g Clement, used two threads. Either way, when doing this for the first time you need to carefully undo the old stitching, one hole at a time, so that the exact pattern could be identified and replicated. There was also a bit of a knack in getting the correct tension. With a bit of practice, the finished result was as good as the original.

My take was that machine stitching is fine for machines, but hand stitching is different. What works is the test, of course. I bought a wallpaper seam roller to press the seam flat.

[Brucey]

If you are going to have sprint rims and tubs then you need to decide how lightweight you are going to go, and whether you are going to go 'aero' or not. Aero sprint rims are often incredibly stiff. Traditional sprint rims go down to about 280g (for ones that are -just- strong enough for road use) which means you can have a wheelset that is ~300g lighter than with open pros. To take advantage of this you also need to be running fairly lightweight (read expensive) tubs too. Throw in lightweight tyres, spokes and lightweight hubs and you can quite easily get a wheelset about 600g lighter than open pros and roadgoing HPs.

I've used wheelsets which range from 24h or 28h lightweight rims right the way to 36h Monthléry Route rims (real bruisers; strong enough for a tandem wheelset in fact). From memory Mavic only did about four different conventional extrusions (which varied slightly over time) and made a whole range of sprint rims with them, varying finish (anodising) and so forth.

~280g: GL280, some Oro models
~330g: GL330, some Oro models
~390g; Monthléry Pro, GP4
~420g: Monthléry Route, SSC

These rims were about 20mm wide apart from the Route/SSC which was ~22mm wide. Other manufacturers had a similar range of rims in most cases; you chose between something light for racing (and taking a risk with the wheelset strength) vs something strong and reliable. Most people used ~390g rims for road racing and something lighter for TTs and track work. The lighter rims ( 280s and 330s) used to split too often if built into dished rear road wheels which then saw any hard use. However they usually made front wheels which were strong enough, so for a road wheelset going 'one lighter' in the front rim wasn't a bad idea. One of the reasons rims and hubs cracked BITD with sprint rims is that the spoke tension could be made much higher than with a clincher rim of similar size. Some track hubs are built using aluminium alloys which are not at all corrosion resistant; these hubs work Ok on the track but if you use them on the road when there is road salt present you can expect them to break.

One of the things I would say is that between the differences in the rims, spoking, and tyres the suitability of different wheelsets for different surfaces was considerable. At one time I had a set of Mach2 CD2 rims and ~21mm tyres on one set of wheels and ~24mm tubs on a wheelset with more conventional rims (plus various wire-on wheelsets for training etc). The former were brilliant on a perfectly smooth surface but rubbish on a bumpy tarmac outdoor track (or the road come to that).

The tyres were a PITA to maintain if you used them much on the road; punctures, damp etc were constant threats. Cheap tubs were often wonky from the moment they were first mounted and rarely improved with time. On the other hand you could ride an outdoor track league every week in the summer and expect to get a couple of seasons out of a set of tubs that way without too much effort.

On the road if you compare Open Pros with ~200g tyres + 50g tubes you are only a fraction heavier than (say) Pro/GP4 and a training tub. So if you are planning to use the latter then its not worth it on weight grounds. You do get a stronger wheelset though. Rolling resistance-wise you only get any real benefit if the tubs are glued onto the rims very carefully, using an adhesive that dries hard. Anything soft is liable to move around a tiny bit and make the tyre slower. Aero-wise tubs are often worse, because there is nearly always a bad transition between the rim and the side of the tyre whereas HPs can have a little fillet of rubber in about the same place which helps to smooth the airflow. Bottom line with tyres is that it is quite easy to save a bit of weight with tubs, they are probably comfier (width for width) too, but its easier to get a low Crr, and a rounder tyre which is easier to maintain with HPs.

cheers

[mattsccm]

Typing this with sticky fingers. Tub cement, having just bunged a new one on my TT wheel.
Undoubtedly a high quality modern tyre with a latex tube will ride better than most tubs but you could say that about lots of things. Buy decent tubs not those Vittoria Rally ones or the cheapy Conti. Tufos ride like hose pipe IMHO.
Rims can be peanuts. Until recently I was scrounging around old fashioned bike shops that catered for racers in the last century. 25 quid for a pair of wheels was about right, just for the usuable tubs on them. Nowadays the "retro" scene has pushed them up in price as they get broken for the hubs. I have a shed full rims. Well maybe a dozen rims doing nothing. Mostly a mix of Mavics. Worthless .
GP4's were a classic and well thought of in their day. Brucey pretty well has said it all.

[scottg]

Tubasti
(by Aldo Ross)

Tubasti on the sidewalls
Tubasti on the spokes
Tubasti on the workbench
And a bunch of cotter bolts

Tubasti on the visegrips
Tubasti on my arm
Tubasti on my chin and cheek
I hope it won't cause harm

Tubasti on the light switch
Tubasti on the cats
Tubasti on my shoes and socks
And on my car's floor mats

Tubasti on the carpet
Tubasti in my hair
I tried to glue just one damn tire
Now Tubasti's everywhere!