This is my fixed-gear commuter bike (a Surly Cross-Check frame/Reynolds Ouzo pro fork) And when I say commuter I mean everything from riding to the office, to shopping, going to Boulder for meetings or throwing it on a plane for a trip to the East Coast. I've done everything from the Black Hills around Mt. Rushmore, to muddy Vermont single track on this bike. One of the best investments I ever made.
The one thing I want to point out is the Mavic Reflex tubular rims. Tubulars for commuting? I hear you scoff. Yes, in this particular case, Veloflex Roubaix, which are wide, durable and incredibly comfortable. I can't remember the last time I flatted on these. I.e., more than a year ago with daily commuting on normal roads.
Plus you are to consider, how else can you get a bomb-proof 1450 gram wheelset, with Campy Record hubs for under $500? Beats me, but it won't be clinchers. When I first started racing, I would race on tubulars and train on clinchers. But in my own apples-to-apples comparison (tubular vs the open version of the same tire, Vittoria or Veloflex) I got far more flats on clinchers (yes, proper inflation and the same roads). So it simply wans't worth the trouble to have two different flat repair systems. I gave my son my Record/Mavic-CXP33 wheels and haven't looked back. If I ride through glass accidentally, of course, I will stop if possible and wipe of the tires, but I don't baby these things.
Except for cyclocross, my current favorite tires are Veloflex. I use the Criterium and Service Corse for racing and the Roubaix for training. And the training includes quite of bit of dirt/gravel roads up in the mountains (e.g., the Gross Res road above Boulder).
Discussions involving tubulars vs clinchers invariably descend into the theological. My only point is to answer a question I get all the time: you train on tubulars? What, you live inside a velodrome? Plus, I actually kinda like gluing up tires. It gives me a chance to spend quality time in my garage inhaling solvent fumes and communing with the gods of cycling yore.
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