After soliciting data from listmembers on the suitability of the Tufo D28 Pro Cyclocross tubular as a road tire, I decided to give them a try. I ordered three from World Class Cycles (Importers of Hetchins and Bob Jackson in the US), along with the Tufo rim tape and sealant. Tires are priced at $32 a piece, but if you order more than one, the price drops to around $27. They arrived Monday, but today was the first chance I had to mount and ride them. My impressions are as follows:
SUMMARY: A good, functional road tire, with the greatest strengths being comfort and rim protection. Not super fast or light, but seems to roll fine on the road once up to speed. Foul weather conditions and a low horsepower motor prevented a full evaluation of speed/performance characteristics. Appearance is a minus for classic applications. I plan to bring these wheels to the Cirque for parking lot demos, if anyone is interested.
DETAILS. 1. Physical Characteristics/Appearance. This is one big tire. If you judge a man's worth by the cubic centimeters of high pressure air his tires hold, this is your rubber. The D28 measures out at a true 28 millimeters across, and the same tall. It dwarfs 28mm Continental Supersports, and is bigger than a 32 mm Panaracer Pasela (both clinchers). The tire is so big, in fact, that the brake quick release on the test bike couldn't open wide enough to admit the wheels, requiring partial deflation to get them mounted. (The test bike was equipped with tightly set Weinmann Carreras, whose quick releases don't exactly open super wide, but still---). They are, I believe as big as if not bigger that Clement's legendary Campione Del Mundos, especially in height. The tread pattern is a diamond type file tread, with 4 mm flat topped diamonds making up the tread pattern. This is, after all, a cyclo cross tire, so you have to expect a somewhat rougher tread. However the diamonds are packed so tight that it presents a smoothish profile to the road.
The sidewall is hard to see from internet catalog scans, so I will tell you that it isn't any kind of brown, it is red. As in RED. Not an eye-catching red, but more of an eye poking red. Scarlet/Cherry we're talking. So negative points on appearance, if you're require the classic latex tan sidewall. My R&D section is exploring methods of altering the color. A green highlighter yields some brown tint, but the textured nature of the sidewall prevents easy, uniform tinting.
RIDE CHARACTERISTICS. This is a very comfortable tire. I side by sided them with the 32 mm (nominal) Panaracer Paselas, and the D28's beat them cold in shock absorption. Gravel, speed dots, fractured pavement and the like were all pie for the D28s. Tubulars are famed for the comfort of their ride, and the D28s deliver. My hazy recollection of 20 years ago tells me that big Clement Silks were more cushy, but these beat any clincher I've tried that I can remember all hollow. The tires seem round without lumps, and mount straight (except on the rear, where my tire department left a little wave in the tread that I can't move now that the glue has set up. But that's operator error, not a tire fault.)
Speed/acceleration testing is incomplete at this time. The tires didn't seem especially draggy or prone to bog, but neither did they leap off the line. However test conditions weren't favorable for high speeds or fast starts (cold, rainy, motor missing on 2 cylinders), so this impression may change in the future. This is not a superlight item (catalog weight is listed at 310 grams) so you don't expect them to be track sprinter tires, but they are fine if the emphasis is on ride plushness over absolute acceleration. That having been said, rolling resistance seems suitably low, and road noise is faintly there but not obtrusive. I could only hear a faint buzz when rolling downwind where wind noise was subtracted from the background. I suspect that, as the diamonds in the center of the tread wear down a tad, the noise will decrease.
DURABILITY: Unknown to me, but list member Olof Stroh has had a set on for two years, and reports very good wear characteristics and flat resistance. He also says that in time road dust blunts the worst of the visual impact of the red sidewalls. Thanks, Olof!
TEST DETAILS: Tires were mounted on Mavic GP 4 rims (old style), 36 14 gauge spokes with Suntour Superbe hubs, running a 13-24 7 speed Suntour freewheel. Tires are very stiff when new, so stretch them good and leave them inflated on dry rims overnight before mounting. The heavyish rims and high spoke count may have contributed to the mild acceleration response. Bike was a 63 cm Marinoni Special, SP tubing, not a feather by any means. The ride was a ten mile loop with minimal climbing. Tires are marked "90 psi", but an earlier email from Tufo NA indicated that these tires can be run up to 120 psi safely. I ran them at 100 psi out of an abundance of caution.
TRY FOR YOURSELF: I plan to bring these wheels to the Cirque, so if you have a bike these wheels will fit, you can ride them around the block. Trying is always better than imagining.
Further updates to follow as data justifies it.
Tom Adams, Shrewsbury NJ
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