Challenge

Holy Baby Hey-Sooos these are massively, ridiculously hard to mount. You better have Popeye forearms and farm boy grip strength. Also helps to do it in the sun over 70 degrees. Work it really hard pushing from the valve stem while losing your fingernails getting that last bead over the rim. After they are ridden and pumped up they loosen up a bit in case you ever flat and need to put a tube in. Just because Challenge doesn't want you to feel any accomplishment upon getting the tire on the rim, it is a nagging process of getting them to seal and stay inflated. Use about 9oz of sealant to basically make an aquarium inside the tire of anti-flat juice. If, and only then, these tires ride great and are fast. Just accept the fact you will fear the day you have to put a tube in them on the side of the road in 40 degree F weather.

I'm enjoying the Baby Limus for gravel riding. It's confident and smooth rolling while running well on paved roads on the way to local gravel. I do wonder about the strength of the sidewall because a stick punctured it while I was biking across a grassy park. I'm now running inner tubes with Orange Seal added.

Comments from others about the difficulty in mounting the tire on rim are on point. it is frustratingly hard, but once they're on these tires are a lot of fun.

The first generation of these Strada PRO TLR tires delivered a perfect ride, but living with them was miserable. Mounting was extremely difficult, they didn't hold air, they drank sealant, and raised your blood pressure.

I am thrilled to report that the folks at Challenge have preserved the perfect ride quality and excellent looks of the first generation and packaged it in a tire that behaves like.....a tire!! They now do incredible things like:

' Go over a rim edge with only one's thumbs

' Seat with a floor pump

' Hold air overnight

' Hold air for many days after that

' Require only a normal amount of sealant to continue holding air

' Keep the owner's blood pressure at healthy levels

I purchased the 28mm variety which inflate just shy of 30mm wide on 21mm internal rims. I now strongly recommend these tires.

Here is an update to my previous (1/6/2026) review. Finally after two days of seeping leakage I got these 700 x 45 size to seal. a smart AI search tells me I would have gotten a better result id I had used Orange Seal rather than Peatys sealant.

Finally got to do a decent ride on these. ride is very smooth almost sublime on the road, fabulous on hard gravel and damned good on bark paths. Rolling resistance feels very low as promised. Steering is so-so especially on wet roads, but that may be my bike. They are on a Canyon Grizl Al and it feels like the front steering is floppy so that may be a geometry issue. Also, the inflation max is 40 PSI, and I am a 240-pound rider, so they may be a bit soft for a guy of my size.

Dry road is great. All in all its a pretty darned sweet tire, but I would probably drop to a 40 mm if I had to buy again. I do ride 90% road; on gravel these are simply the best.

I can't wait to get in some longer miles on dry roads as these break in.