If you ride tubulars, chances are you glue them on. Or a bike shop glues them for you, but either way, glue is most likely your bonding method of choice. But possibly not any more. Here’s one for the bike geeks out there: Effetto Mariposa’s Carogna (pronounced Car-own-ya) tubular gluing tape.
Most tub tape is basically an enhanced form of double-sided sellotape. Carogna differs in that both sides are coated with a slightly different substance. The rim side is a newly developed industrial-strength acrylic glue designed to be native to the tape, which means when you remove the tape from the rim, the glue will stick to the tape, making for an easier clean up.
The substance on the tubular side is a 1mm layer of glue developed for underwater applications. As you’ve probably guessed, that means it’ll do pretty well in the rain, and copes well with humidity to boot. It’s also designed to move and spread when the tyre is first inflated, meaning it’ll cover the surface and fill in any gaps.
Effetto Mariposa also claim the Carogna tape has the best heat resistance of any tape on the market. They say anything below 40 degrees isn’t a problem and it’s also been tested and provides perfect bonding at 150 degrees for hours at a time.
The tape is available in two widths; small, or 21mm, for 21mm or narrower rims and medium, or 25mm, for rims more than 21mm wide. You can buy it in either single rolls for one wheel (£9.99 for small, £12.99 for medium) or industrial-size rolls made for bike shops that are 16m long each (£59.99 and £69.99 for small and medium respectively).
We’ll be testing this out over the next little while on our Campag Bora Ultra tubulars, so keep an eye out for a review in a month or so.
For more info, check out the Effetto Mariposa website or visit their UK distributors, Upgrade Bikes.
