Wheel Question

IMO I like the advantage of clinchers. A flat sucks but its much easier to switch out a tube in the middle of your ride

Q.How does a car engine work?

A.I like red cars.

There is so little difference in performance with modern wheels/tires/tubes that it's a matter of preference rather than an issue of one being faster.

Tubies are faster to change flats, cut off old tire, put new tire on, inflate and ride.

But the things that keeps me buying clinchers:

I'm used to clinchers.
I can choose which tube (butyl or latex) to use and can switch out without an issue.
It costs $5 to $15 when you flat on a clincher. Cost of new tube.
It costs $50 to $200 when you flat on a tubular. You have to buy the whole setup.

No offense, but with the question asked, I bet tubulars are not for you. They are more involved in that you need to pre-stretch, glue and mount and although not overly complicated, it is a bit of a procedure and you are relying on your skills to stay safe (you definitely don't want a tubular to roll off in the middle of a race!).

In years past, there was definitely a performance advantage of tubulars, but modern clinchers are so good that the gap is more of less erased. Another options would be tubeless, which really marries the riding quality of a good tubular with convenience of a clincher, but there's three drawbacks; limited choices of wheels and tires, really requires dedicated wheels (tubeless ready) and they are a bit more involved in installing and maintaining (you need to add sealant after a certain time period, so about 1/year).

Performance is a wash between clinchers and tubulars; however, as previously mentioned, the installation of tubulars is much more involved with stretching and gluing. As well, the gluing process, to do it right so you get the best performance whereas with a clincher, it's very straightforward.

I had tubulars and sold them and now use clinchers for everything; the added hassle of tubulars was more than I was willing to deal with for my race wheels.

I have considered racing cyclo-cross on tubulars since you can run very low pressures without worrying about snake bites but I race cyclo-cross so rarely that I am just sticking with clinchers there too.

Shane