I wanted to follow up on the "Kenda SC" Veloflex tires.
I inquired of the seller as to how they came to get these tires, and if they had any info about the Veloflex connection.
Their reply:
"these tires came to us from the Rally team. Kenda was the tire sponsor for them but didn't have the exact spec tires the team needed for racing thus Veloflex--under the Kenda name--was contracted to provide the tires...but as mentioned they were branded Kenda."
I saw numerous mentions online about how the Kenda SC tires are really manufactured by Veloflex for team use.
I also tried to find any tubular tire, present or relatively recent past, manufactured by Kenda, that had the same tread pattern and/or a tan sidewall. There was no such beast, and as best I could tell, Kenda only made/makes two tubular tires and they are all-black.
The "yellow" of the sidewall, the pattern of the base tape, general feel, and the smell, all say Veloflex to me. The tread pattern of the 27 are Vlaanderen: diamond/file, dense along the sides, a bit more spread out in the center, sales jargon: "graduated diamond tread design it is possible to have a low rolling resistance on straight roads, while the road holding during cornering it's granted by a deeper groove of the diamond pattern on the sidewall.", down to the super tiny lines that run along the outer edges of the tread strip.
So, I am personally "convinced" that these are indeed Veloflex manufactured tires, the 25mm being the Roubaix, and the 27mm being Vlaanderen, and that they are just rebranded with the "Kenda SC" logo, for promotional and sponsorship requirements.
The seller seems to have a limited quantity of the 25mm (Roubaix), as the total number available is dwindling. They seem to have a larger quantity of the 27mm (Vlaanderen), as whenever the quantity available drops below a certain point, they get 'restocked' to about 22 available. This 'restocking' has occurred a couple times, but who knows how many more times that will happen.
Here are some comparison pics of the 27mm Kenda SC compared to a "real" Vlaanderen.
"Real" Vlaanderen (with some mileage on them) on top, Kenda SC on bottom:
"Real" Vlaanderen on top (previously glued), Kenda SC on bottom
Same valves:
Kenda SC: 315g (the other one I weighed was 320g)
Vlaanderen: 315g
I don't have any "real" Roubaix for comparison, but here are some in-hand pics of the 25mm Kenda SC tires I received.
