The thing I like best about these tubes is the air nozzle is completely threaded and includes a ring that seats against the wheel face, making it easy to fill. I ride a lot of miles every week, and it is inevitable in this area to pick up a sand burr, especially in August. All tubes must have seams because of manufacturing processes which can be a hindrance to a patch repair, but these tubes don't seem to cause problems in that area. I am very glad that I discovered these tubes.
I've been using Continental Grand Prix tires for decades, and they continue to impress. The performance and road feel are exceptional, striking a perfect balance between speed and comfort. For lightweight tires, they are surprisingly durable, handling a variety of conditions with ease. On most of my rims (Hunt, Mavic), mounting and dismounting is not too difficult, which is always a bonus. These tires have long been my go-to choice, and I run them on all my road bikes. Highly recommended for anyone looking to elevate their ride.
Picked these up on sale to try since I love their CX tire lineup and the ride quality of their tires, both handmade and vulcanized lineups. Wanted something for grippy for single-track and chunky gravel that still rolled adequately fast on the smooth stuff. These tires are very similar in tread as the CX Grifo tire they make, with the center knobs being the exact same.
Now my assessment, these things absolutely blew away my expectations. Have put them through their paces from fast XC style single-track with some rocky technical terrain to smooth road and gravel. Had a blast keeping up with our fast XC MTB group on my Niner RLT 9 gravel bike. They run well on the smooth gravel with just slightly more rolling resistance than the Pirelli Cinturato Gravel H I run for the smoother stuff, but cornering confidence and chunky washboard, these really do behave way better, something to be said about Challenge's Handmade casings I guess.
The only real downside is the mounting process. If you're not familiar with mounting handmade Challenge tires, well, they can be a real Challenge (pun intended). It's worth it in the end though. These are definitely great tires and will be my go to all around mix-terrain that leans more into trail and single-track for sure!
You can't help but notice the quality of these tires when you first unbox them, very tight production tolerances with no discernable irregularities - even the excess rubber in the center of the tread is very
consistent. They do feel, stiff but it doesn't translate to a harsh ride. I think it is just a very dense compound. I just gave them a 40 mile maiden voyage on a typical late-Fall New England day with a mix of good, bad and truly horrendous wet roads and came away extremely impressed, such a great ride quality with loads of grip. The active comfort technology must be legit, these might be the best tubeless tires I've ridden to date as far as road feel goes - it's really like riding on clouds compared to many other race tires I've tried. They also feel very fast, honestly I could not detect the rolling resistance from these tires even on inclines and even though they are heavy-ish I didn't notice the weight. I didn't do any categorized climbs of course but a few steep ones anyway. Hopefully they will last me at least a few thousand miles, judging by all the 5 star reviews here and on other websites there appears to be a good chance they will.
