- HOT TOPICS:
- The new VeloNews.com (BETA)
The Jamis team rides tubular mountain tires at Sea Otter; plus some more tech finds at the race
- Article Extras
- Photos
- Race Index
Team Jamis races Edge tubular mountain bike wheels at Sea Otter
We caught up to Jason Sager, frontman for new Team Jamis and PR man for Edge Composites. Sager’s new team is sponsored by Edge and Geax, and he’s led the charge to get the team riding Edge 26-inch tubular mountain bike wheels with Geax tubular tires.
“We’ve been riding them since January,” said Sager. “Edge has produced them (the rims) for about two years, but the thing that limited it was the tire selection.” Previously, the only tubular mountain bike tires were built by hand at the Dugast factory, from the carcasses of normal tube-type tires. The cost for Dugast to build a custom, sewup mountain bike tire would be upwards of $250. “Now that Geax is producing a viable tread and compound, it’s something that is more realistic.”
Currently Geax is offering one tread pattern and tire size, the Saguaro 2.0. It’s meant as an all-purpose, go fast everywhere tire, and Sager says they are wearing well. The tread blocks on a tire with 20 hours of ride time were still sharp, and no knobs were missing.
As to tire pressure, ”We seem to be running less,” said Sager. “I’ll set it up how I want it to feel, and you would think it is about 30, but it turns out to be more like 25 or 26psi.” Sager says the ride quality is good. “The casing is so supple we’re actually running softer than you would think.”
Running tubular mountain bike tires is not for everyone, nor for every condition. The team is using Geax Pit Stop sealant to help prevent overnight leak-down and flats due to punctures, but “if you’re going to have a failure this isn’t something that you fix in the field, so it’s a matter of using the tire in the right place,” said Sager. “These days, typically when people flat it’s a catastrophic failure like a sidewall cut.” He said that for this reason, particularly rocky courses would not be the best place to run tubulars.
Installation is no different from any tubular tire. “It’s just like gluing a 'cross tubular. We’re using Vittoria glue,” said Sager. “And we’ve seen guys using the Tufo tubular tape — they make a wide MTB version and it works fine.”
He pointed out that the forces on a mountain bike tire are not quite as significant as on a road or 'cross tire. “The tire is going to break loose before it rolls off the rim. You don’t have as much grip,” he said. Plus, the Edge mountain bike rim has a wide tire bed for more glue contact area, as well as a groove down the center to accommodate the seam on the base tape of the Geax tires. “It’s great because it centers the tire and gives better contact area,” said Sager.
We’ll keep tabs on the team and their tires to see how they hold up over the season.
Edge Composites with more components
Growing in profile at a rapid pace, Edge Composites continues to expand its range. At Sea Otter, they showed a prototype seatpost, a recently finished road stem, and a 24mm carbon tubular rim.
The seatpost should be available by summertime, in four sizes: 27.2, 30.9, 31.6, and 34.9. It’s currently still in prototype phase and could change, but testers feel good about the current iteration. The piece is built with a one-bolt clamp, and the most recent sample weighs roughly 180 grams.
The carbon road stem will be available in about a month. It’s also a lightweight part — a 110mm stem reportedly weighs 113 grams. It comes with an aluminum face plate and titanium hardware.
The road rim is available for tubular tires only, and is incredibly light at a claimed 190 grams. Edge Composites recently built a new tool for post machining the brake tracks on rims, such that they are honed perfectly parallel to within 1/4000th of an inch. The outcome is smoother brake performance without pulsing. The company is confident enough in the strength of their rims to not specify rider weight limits or tire pressure restrictions. Still in the works is a new 45mm rim, which will replace the 38mm version currently on offer.
Related
