It is interesting that Shimano's Di2 electric Dura-Ace and Campagnolo's 11-speed are considered innovative and groundbreaking at some level, when the most significant innovation that the two heavy hitters possess will be buried in the back of their catalogs for 2009. What I refer to is Road Tubeless. This coming season, Campagnolo and its offspring, Fulcrum, will be fielding Road Tubeless wheels. Specialized (made by Hutchinson) has come on board with a "Turbo" Road Tubeless tire and a matching Roval wheel, and two yet-to-be announced tire makers are reported to be coming on board. But this too will be buried in the back pages of cycling news.

Shimano pioneered the concept along with tire maker Hutchinson two years earlier, when Road Tubeless was released to an almost inaudible reception from the cycling community. Campagnolo's 11-speed group is already being touted in by bike brands in preseason press camps, as is Shimano's electric shifting, but fancy shifting won't make a significant improvement in the way the bicycle rides-nothing, at least by comparison to the palpable boost in comfort, cornering, resistance to punctures, and the reduction in rolling resistance that Road Tubeless brings to the table.

"I agree with the world's professional racers that tubulars are the deities of road wheels, but gluing tires onto a rim is not the stuff of cycling masses"

As happens so often in cycling's model-year-marketing, the desire for fresh and new results in lots of expensive candy, which tantalizes us with a whopping buzz, but fails to deliver enough protein to sustain growth. Wheels are after all, the soul of the bicycle, and as hard as it may be to admit, the conventional lightweight "racing" clincher has come up against a developmental dead end. Barring the invention of new materials to replace rubber and thread, and a magic transformation of the butyl inner-tube, the wheel and tire that will outfit 99.9-percent of the bicycles sold in the foreseeable future will continue to flat with regularity and jiggle the teeth from their happy owners.

Vittoria's "open tubular" tires are as good as the clincher concept gets-illustrating that the only way to make a clincher roll smoothly and fast is to make the, tube, tire-carcass and tread so thin that it ceases to be viable in the real world of enthusiast-level cycling. Heroic efforts by industry leaders like Continental and Schwalbe to incorporate bulletproof fibers under the tread for puncture protection represent the last inroads-the final chapter in the development of clinchers. But the bottom line is: "why should we settle for the, "best possible performance for a clincher tire," when a substantially better option is staring us in the face? After spending a year comparing tubular tires with Road Tubeless and the most touted conventional clinchers, there is no question that Road Tubeless represents the future of the sport. I agree with the world's professional racers that tubulars are the deities of road wheels, but gluing tires onto a rim is not the stuff of cycling masses. For 20 years, clincher proponents have been touting their latest and greatest tires to be, "as close to the feel of a racing tubular as it gets''-but ride the alternatives and you'll agree that they never really get that close. Road Tubeless, however, fulfills this long-awaited prophesy-and goes two steps better. It delivers the run-flat safety of tubulars and, with the addition of some latex sealant, puncture protection that cyclists only dream about.

Electric shifting? Ok. Eleven Speed? Cool. I'm sure that a handful of thousandairs among us will really enjoy it-but give the rest of us the innovation that we are truly hungry for.

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