Shopping for gravel tires can be overwhelming - there are so many distinct widths, tread styles, and casing features to choose from.
With the right gravel tires on your bike, you'll get better grip during cornering, lower rolling resistance, and improved durability. Let's dig into the Challenge gravel tire line-up, taking at look at the 5 tire options they offer for gravel and adventure use.
Challenge Gravel Tires Tread Shapes
Challenge makes 5 tire models for gravel and adventure bikes. From least aggressive to most aggressive, those tires are:
Challenge Vulcanized TLR (Tubeless-Ready) Gravel Tires
The Vulcanized TLR line are the gravel tires from Challenge for riders who want an economical tire with tubeless compatibility. Challenge recommends their own Smart Sealant for use in tubeless gravel tires; others can of course be used.
The vulcanized line is an excellent choice for budget-conscious riders, it's the lowest price option with tubeless compatibility.
Challenge Handmade HTLR (Tubeless-Ready) Gravel Tires
The HTLR (handmade, tubeless-ready) line of gravel tires offers upgraded performance and features compared with the vulcanized line. As with the vulcanized TLR line, these are for tubeless use on compatible rims with sealant.
The tread shapes stay the same as on the vulcanized tires, but the casing is a higher-end, handmade version focused on performance. The HTLR is more expensive than the vulcanized TLR, but is lighter and more supple, so it's a better choice for more serious riders.
Challenge Clincher Gravel Tires
Challenge continues to offer non-tubeless, (requires an inner tube) tires on some models. You might choose these if you have an older wheelset that isn't tubeless compatible, but otherwise, you can ignore this largely obsolete tire type - tubeless with sealant is the way to go for gravel riding, if your wheels support it. I would only ride a traditional clincher tire with an inner tube on gravel in an emergency, with no other options available.
Challenge Tubular Gravel Tires
Challenge also offers tubular gravel tires, not to be confused with tubeless. A tubular tire is very uncommon in the gravel space, but they do exist. Tubular tires are glued (or taped) onto a dedicated, specialty tubular rim.
If you're new to cycling and unfamiliar with this technology, rest assured, it's not used on your bike (if it was, you're probably a pro athlete, and you would already know!) For the purposes of selecting a gravel tire, tubeless is what you want, and you can safely ignore tubulars.
Challenge gravel tires features
Here are some of the features you'll find across the Challenge gravel tire line-up, and what they mean. Not every tire has every feature, but here is what you'll see offered, depending on the tire:
- Corazza Armor (Silver) - a gravel-specific casing with a double SuperPoly layer for durability and puncture resistance
- Corazza Armor (Gold) - bead-to-bead protection all around the tire casing and sidewall for more aggressive terrain
- PPS2 - "punture protection strip" - extra layer of fabric underneath the tread to resist punctures
Challenge Gravine in action
Check out some of the types of terrain the Gravine was designed for:
I hope this information helps explain the complexity of choices in the Challenge gravel product line. Write or call anytime if I can help you choose the perfect gravel tires to enhance your performance.