Tubular tyre

A tubular tyre, referred to as a tub in Britain,[1] a sew-up in the US, a single in Australia[citation needed], or just a tubular is a bicycle tyre that is stitched closed around the inner tube to form a torus.

For amateur road cycle racing, clincher tyres largely replaced tubular tyres in the early 2000s, but saw a resurgence when carbon rims increased in popularity, as the carbon rim better suited the tubular design.

[citation needed] In 2009, a tubeless tubular with an integrated airtight liner instead of a separate inner tube was introduced.

Yet the extra weight—and more importantly, rotational inertia—is off the wheel, and a tubular tyre therefore has the potential to accelerate more easily.

If it punctures and is to be repaired, it requires more labour to repair than a clincher tyres (wired–on in Britain), as the tyre must be removed from the rim, opened up, patched, sewn back up, then finally glued back to the rim.