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Don't judge me as stupid just yet, I'm not sure if mine's a tubular or tubeless tire but everyone says tubular tires are glued to the metal wheel. However, mine isn't. It consists of a smooth, inflatable tube inside, covered by a rough, durable cover. There is absolutely no glue used so I'm pretty confused. The way it stays on the wheel is because the wheel has a rim that keeps it from falling off. If it helps, by bike is a GMC Denali with 700C wheels. Please help, I really have no idea.

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  • It sounds like you are running tubular tires on a clincher wheel. If so, this is probably not that safe. Pictures of both (with tire off of rim)?
    – Ken Hiatt
    Jun 21, 2013 at 6:20
  • It sounds to me like you have what is commonly (though somewhat mistakenly) referred to as a "clincher" -- the upper-left picture in James's answer. This is the most common style by far -- probably 99% of the bikes in the US use this style.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jun 21, 2013 at 11:11
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    Since your tires have no adhesive, you aren't using tubulars. Your bike uses a fairly basic 700c clincher tire, with an inner tube.
    – zenbike
    Jun 23, 2013 at 17:13

1 Answer 1

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A normal clincher tyre will have a "bead" as shown in the following diagram.enter image description here

It's possible you have a "tubalar clincher" like this: enter image description here

If none of those quite look right, could you provide a photo?

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  • The other possibility, of course, is tubeless -- basically the first picture but with no tube inside (but probably some sealing goo).
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jun 21, 2013 at 11:10
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    The GMC Denalli is avialable at Walmart, and I am therefore 120% sure it's using clinchers.
    – Kibbee
    Jun 21, 2013 at 13:33
  • @Kibbee ...and indeed if you look at the Walmart link, in the Q & A section, there are Qs and As that all but confirm this (talking about innertubes etc.) although I didn't explicitly see the word "clincher" anywhere.
    – PeteH
    Jun 21, 2013 at 21:38
  • The Tufo tubular clinchers are objectively the worst tire on the planet. Replacing stock WalMart tires with those would be a downgrade. Just sayin'.
    – joelmdev
    Jun 23, 2013 at 15:00
  • @Jm2: Speaking as someone who's been riding the Tufo C Elite Jet tubular clincher for almost 2 years now, I'd fairly strongly disagree with that evaluation. I am curious why you make it though.
    – zenbike
    Jun 23, 2013 at 17:11

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