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Julian Alaphilippe’s late attack and early yellow jersey may bring a bit of déjà vu, but something else about his victory was brand new. Alaphilippe crossed the line on a set of clincher tires, the first road stage victory for tube riveters in the Tour’s century-long history.
The vast majority (all but a small handful) of the Tour’s stages have been won on tubular tires, since the early days of the race. In recent years, tubeless has started to hook on a stage here and there, but most riders, and therefore most wins, still come in tubulars.
Clinchers in use. Photo VK / PN / Cor Vos © 2020
Why clinchers?
Specialized, which sponsors Deceuninck-Quickstep with Roval frames and wheels, recently launched their new Roval Rapide and Alpinist CLX wheels. Surprisingly, the super wide carbon rivets are not officially tubeless compatible. Specialized and Roval have been driving the road tubeless for some time, and Alaphilippe used a tubeless setup for last year’s Tour stages, but the lack of tubeless compatibility means the new Rapide CLX rims must run with tubes.
Most racers still prefer tubulars for the ability to mount them flat and the safety that the glue provides if they go flat in a high speed situation. They are also much more difficult to flatten than a tubular tire.
Rivets, combined with latex chambers, can offer lower rolling resistance compared to tubular ones. That is why some computers run them. These are marginal gains in rolling resistance.
Alaphilippe Wheel / Tire Configuration
Specialized makes a very good tube-type racing tire, the S-Works Turbo Cotton. It has been well tested in independent rolling resistance tests and is known to be a fast overall setup with good cornering grip and wet weather performance.
On Sunday Alaphilippe paired those tires with Roval’s new Alpinist CLX wheels. The Alpinist CLX is the shallower of the two options. As Dave Rome wrote when they were first released:
The Alpinist CLX shares a lot with the Rapide CLX – it’s for disc brakes and tube rivets only, and it shares the same hubs, spokes, weight limit, warranty, and price. But the new Alpinist is shallower, lighter and less obsessed with the wind than its aerodynamic-minded brother.
As Roval’s lightest clincher wheelset to date, the Alpinist weighs an actual 1,248g for torque (562g front, 686g rear), including the rim tape. That’s almost exactly 100g lighter than the CLX 32 Disc it replaces.
Unlike the new Rapide, the Alpinist uses the carbon rim of the same profile 33mm deep and 26.3mm wide front and rear. While the internal shape features the same 21mm hook measurements as the Rapide, that lighter, shallower rim brings the spoke count to 21 spokes at the front and 24 at the rear.
Deceuninck-Quickstep has shown its willingness to try new things at the front of tires for years. Specialized has been more successful than most brands in pushing their riders towards faster-rolling tire setups since Tony Martin’s ill-fated adventure in TT clincher tires at the start of the 2012 Tour de France.
In fact, it appears that the Bora-Hansgrohe has the same roof configurations. A couple of pre-race photos are in the gallery below and clearly show the Rapide and Alpinist finishes.
What remains somewhat confusing is that, in a race setting, there is no benefit to a tube tire over a tubeless tire. They are not faster and lack the self-healing sealant of a tubeless setup. We still find it strange that the new Roval wheels are not tubeless, and we haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation yet.
So the first Tour win with tubular rivets stems from a strange product decision, but traditional rivet fans can rejoice anyway. Our tires are capable of winning on the Tour, even if we are not.
Gallery
Photo: @Cyclingimages, courtesy Specialized
Alpinist and Rapide wheels are in use.
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