Rather than criticism or talking about what went wrong... I'd like to write a bit about why tubular tires became such a trend.
It's natural that these days it appears to be due to tire performance.
However, tubular tires existed because there was a more fundamental problem than that.
In the very early stages, carbon clinchers had a very high frequency of thermal deformation compared to tubular wheels. The tire width was narrow and the internal wheel width was even narrower.
The problem that arose was that during braking, beyond thermal deformation, tire detachment due to tube burst from internal air pressure rise could lead to a fall causing serious injury, so despite the expensive tire price, there was no choice but to select tubular tires.
For this reason, carbon wheels at that time were truly luxurious goods. Since athletes only used them during competitions, the reason why aluminum "big three" became popular was
because of these reasons.
And the reason why those tubular tires didn't puncture easily was because the air pressure that had to be put in was a completely different world.
First of all, this was an era when tire widths themselves were 22c, 23c, and the wide ones were 24c, 25c, and tubular tires with butyl tubes ranged from 160~180
Premium tubulars with latex tubes were designed to accommodate up to 200~220psi, so the appropriate air pressure was also 120~150psi
and above—incredibly high air pressure. Thanks to that, most pebbles would bounce off, and snakebites could occur on
road expansion joint sections (the gear-like sections on the road are called expansion joints—e.j) or drainage ditches, yet we could pass without tire deformation,
so punctures actually occurred less than expected. However, there was a fatal disadvantage: if a puncture occurred during a long tour, you had to stop riding for that day.
As clinchers began to improve, the frequency of thermal deformation dropped overwhelmingly, and with wider profiles, there was no longer any need to use tubulars.
Installation was inconvenient, and thanks to wider wheels, it was proven that improved clinchers were historically superior to existing tubulars.
By the way, to prevent tubular tires from coming off during riding, they had to be installed using a meticulous method.
The process was: first bonding to wheel—setting—second bonding—setting—third bonding—tire attachment. Around the 2010s, when two-ply tubular tape started being used,
that inconvenience decreased significantly, but when replacing tires, all the already-applied bonding or tape residue had to be removed.
Like the inconvenience of removing tubeless rim tape and tape remnants nowadays. Once tubeless was properly installed, there was little need to replace it, but tubular tape was an essential task every time you replaced the tire, so tire installation was often impossible on the same day.
Even with the taping installation method, tire installation finished quickly, but since a period was needed for the tape adhesive to stabilize, immediate riding was not recommended.
Tire price was also an issue—when regular tires cost 30,000-40,000 won, premium tubulars like Competition cost over 100,000 won.
In today's terms, you could think of it as around 150,000-200,000 won per tire. Essentially a disposable item.
