Hi Jay, my experience with Challenge is the bead stretches out before the tread wears out. I gave a set of Stradas from my daughter's bike to my buddy a couple of weeks ago - he and his daughter were rebuilding a frankenbike Shogun and these were the largest tires that would clear the rear brake. When we met for a ride Sunday morning, sure enough, the bead one of her tires at 75 psi had let go in transit. We got it back on the ground with a new (butyl) tube and 70 psi, and she rode 25 fast miles.
In thousands of miles on Challenge, I've never experienced glue failures, and I know others have - though I did have a P-R tubie with a glue holiday that was replaced under warranty. <http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v728/bulldog1935/Raleigh/F%20Moser/98dd60fb-e07a-4e32-86be-baf786a49cc1.jpg> Also had a casing defect on a Chicane tubie that failed 2 miles out on a maiden ride. <http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v728/bulldog1935/Raleigh/Viner/aP3220006.jpg> both were handled as the warranty by the vendors. My experience is any sizes of the "open tubular" clinchers is they work best on skinny rims and running well under rated pressure - which they do quite well, both comfort and speed. I've run 30mm Strada Biancas on two bikes for many thousand miles, Open Pro and Synergy rims. I never had a bead relaxation problem on the Open Pros, but finally changed those to Barlows just because they would fit. FWIW, the Strada Biancas ran wonderfully at the same (low) pressures as the Barlows. On the Synergy rims is where I really noticed the bead relaxation became habitual as the tire aged. I finally gave up on those and went to Stampede Pass EL (with latex tubes) and find them nearly as fast and notably more cozy because of the taller sidewall. Currently I'm not running Challenge on anything. My go-fast has 27mm Vittoria Open Paves, which are wonderful in every respect except the soft tread wears out. My daughter had a maiden ride on Veloflex Corsa (only available in 25mm) last weekend, which are actually the same tires as the Open Paves, but hand-made in Italy and about 20% cheaper. She was delighted. I also run the Vittoria/Veloflex open tubulars well below rated pressure. One tire you may want to try is the Vittoria Cross XN, which has a killer price at Wiggle right now. If they're like all other Vittorias, they're narrower and taller than width rating would indicate. I was strongly tempted by these at higher price before I went to the Barlows. http://www.wiggle.com/vittoria-cross-xn-pro-folding-cyclocross-tire/ currently OOS, I would put an e-mail stock notification - that's how I managed to catch veloflex for my daughter - they sell out quickly when they show up in stock. On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 6:36:56 AM UTC-5, Call Me Jay wrote: > > I want to love Challenge tires but we're having a difficult relationship. > I have a set a of Challenge Almanzos. While they live up to their billing > as supple, comfy tires, the tires and matching latex tubes aren't > confidence inspiring. Last Summer, I had a tire with less than 50 miles > delaminate on me (it was replaced under warranty). This Summer, I'm on my > third or fourth not so cheap latex tube---all have failed right around the > valve stem without any apparent reason. Help! What am I doing wrong? > > Alternatively, can anyone recommend another mixed terrain and/or road tire > that measures around 700x30. I'm assuming most 32s won't fit--I have a > Custom with old school Campy short reach brakes to maximize clearance. > Thanks. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
