Galen Mittermann

clinchers vs tubulars rolling resistance:

http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/0/02/72/10/tubular-specs.html
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/0/02/72/10/clincher-specs.html
http://www.biketechreview.com/tires/AFM_tire_crr.htm

there is lots of tire rolling resistance data out there, look for yourselves.

And here's a great write up on wheel theory in general:

http://www.biketechreview.com/archive/wheel_theory.htm

"In summary, wheels account for almost 10% of the total power required to race your bike and the dominant factor in wheel performance is aerodynamics. Wheel mass is a second order effect (nearly 10 times less significant) and wheel inertia is a third order effect (nearly 100 times less significant)."

Many, many myths still persist in cycling, as we are a stubborn, traditional and superstitious bunch. Myths liike, tubulars are faster than clinchers (they're not), higher tire pressure = faster tire (nope), wheel weight is more important than aerodynamics (unless the hill is really steep, it's not), riding hard in the winter is taboo (debunked many times over), melted cheese has more fat than solid...
Remember, just because pro's do it doesn't mean that it's faster. It's not like getting on a pro team gives you sudden insight.

For fun, cruise on over to www.analyticcycling.com and model out some of your equiment choices and see what is really going on.

Galen

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