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The Challenge Gravel Grinder has been around for years. It was one of the first and best gravel tires back when we (myself included) were making do with cyclocross bikes. I ran the original versions for years, swapping out only for the very deepest winter months. Things were easier then; tubeless hadn’t really caught on. I liked them because they didn’t hold me back on the tarmac, and were fast as hell off road, if a little squirrely.
Now Challenge has updated them, though you wouldn’t really know to look at them, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Are they as good as the originals, are they better, and why would you want a tyre with a centre that’s almost a winter road tyre, and side knobs designed for the muddiest cyclocross courses?
I’ve had these fitted up to my gravel bike for a while around a set of Parcours Alta wheels. They’ve been around the woods, on gravelly trails and a lot of road miles in between too. I still love them, though I suspect they’re not going to be for everyone.
Design and aesthetics
What we have here is the 40mm, cotton cased (or what Challenge refers to as ‘Handmade’), tubeless ready version of the tyre. It comes in widths as low as 33mm, and as well as a tubeless cotton case, you could opt for a standard vulcanised rubber construction, or even a tubular (in 33mm cyclocross width only). You can still get the old version too, and at a glance, it’s pretty hard to see which is the new tread and which is the old, besides the “NEW” banner slapped across the image of these tyres in particular.
As a primer, the Gravel Grinder grew out of the brand’s Chicane cyclocross tyre, but was just the name for the larger volume model of the same tread. Fundamentally this means it’s a tyre designed to be raced at low pressures on a ‘cross course, meaning hardpacked mud, maybe some sand, and by riders used to things getting slippery. Bear this in mind, because it’s key to understanding how the tyre behaves when you take it out into more general riding.
The tyre tread is based on a file centre, bordered by widely spaced triangles. So far, so all-road. Beyond the file-triangle coalition is a no-man’s-land of empty rubber, punctuated by the instantly recognisable shoulder knobs from Challenge’s flagship mud…
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