Noel confirms my thoughts on these tires. Another way to look at it is imagine that a company said "lets make this product as badly as we possibly can, but not so terrible that nobody would use them". Challenge has found the line between terrible and just barely usable and produced a product right on that line. Just keep checking those base tapes though - and re-glue the base tape if need be with Latex or whatever is proper.
As an aside, for smooth dirt single track (no major rock fields) the challenge tires (as did the del mondos) work great. Nothing is as fast and fun (if you're up to the challenge, no pun intended) on mild dirt as a wide tubular. In Boulder we have a lot of what I call groomed dirt - to mellow for the mountain bike but a blast on a road bike with clearance and wide tires.
Mike Kone in Boulder CO
At 12:34 AM 7/31/02 -0400, noel3006@netscape.net wrote:
>I've been lurking on the list for some time; this is my first post. (Hope
it works.)
>
>The cause of my "delurking" is my surprise at the negative reaction to
Challenge tubulars. I will admit that they are not up to the standard of
the old Hutchinsons, Del Mundos, Paris-Roubaixs, etc., but they certainly
seem to me to be at least the equal of the medium priced "intermediate"
tubulars of a few (well, ten or fifteen) years ago. Certainly, they must be
better than cross tires with the knobs chopped off, not to mention the
flourescent plastic monstrosities put out by Tufo.
>
>I have used the Challenge tires for some months now, and have no
complaint. Yes, they are a touch dry, not always perfectly straight, and
they aren't Italian, but I put tens of thousands of miles on "training"
tubulars -- of exactly that description -- without problem.
>
>I would dearly love to see a properly made racing tire in the 26 - 28 mm
range, and would be glad to pay premium prices for them. But until that
happens (and I'm not holding my breath) the Challenge tires certainly seem
adequate to me.
>
>Noel Hoffmann
>
>
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