Challenge Getaways

 Last summer I was just riding along and sliced open one of my pirellis (ok i was going too fast through a loose, rocky, downhill turn in the middle of glacier), and after a couple seasons on the same tires i decided to try something else. We had some nice, big 45mm challenge getaways on the shelf and my new bike had the room to fit them so that made it a pretty easy decision.

These tires look really good and are like big fluffy clouds to ride on and they go fast. For tires that actually have tread, they are one of the fastest things on bicycle rolling resistance. Out of the box they measured over 47mm on a 23mm hookless rim and are more like 48mm now even at 25psi.

So that was the good, but there are some drawbacks. Mainly, cornering grip is not really great especially if it's loose. the big edge knobs of the pirelli gravel RC are really good and those come in big sizes too. I also do not trust these around sharp rocks. But after nearly 3k miles of riding through the fall and spring I have not had any punctures and now they're due to be replaced.

These definitely get my "would buy again" seal of approval, and they look good. But next I'm going to try the new schwalbe g-one r/rs pro in 50mm, so we'll get that posted sometime soon once I put them on.

Schwalbe Rick XC

 Got some new mtb tires this spring. On my trek hardtail I had been riding schwalbe thunder burts for the last two years, and while i like them and they are really fast, I wanted to go to something with a bit more grip. Enter schwalbe's new Rick XC, which is supposed to be wider, faster than a racing ralph, and have more grip than the thunder burt. So I got some.

here it is compared to my thunder burt

Listed weight is 760g for a 29x2.4 and one of them was there, at 750g, but the other was not.

Soooo, the heaviest tire i've had in awhile. But at least it's 2.4" or 62mm wide, right?

This is on a 29mm internal width bontrager rim.

So, that's not great. a 2.25" tire that is almost 800g. Not thrilled.

But how do they ride? well, seems pretty good. They are fast and the traction when you lean them over is good. the edge knobs bite and pull you through the corner really well, and I like that from a tire. Some just kind of feel the same no matter the lean angle where others really grab and give you some confidence and get the bike turning.

I've ridden these down our local rim and tire wrecking trail- chopsticks on mt sentinel- a few times, with no slices or punctures, so that's good. My friend Phil has not had great luck going down that one.

I also went down my local smooth and fast trail- ravine, and set my 2nd fastest time ever without really trying to go fast.

So, in conclusion, it's a pretty fast tire with more traction than the thunder burt. BUT, it is narrower than listed and might be heavy too. I'm going to keep them but probably won't be my next tire unless they fix them to actually measure 2.4" wide (and I did give them a good amount of time at high pressure to stretch out).