Bad Lag

So, I appear to have made a mistake in purchasing replacement tires. Purchasing goods via the internet is very challenging at times.

I bought some Challenge tires and must have selected "black/white" (as opposed to "black/black"), when what I really wanted was black/tan. I glanced at them when they arrived but put them on the shelf about a year ago, maybe longer.

Will this white color darken to the tan sidewall or is it actually a "white wall" tire of sorts?

I have not yet mounted them but now that I have taken a closer look at the color, I believe I will NOT like the appearance.

What do I do? Buy yet another pair in black/tan? Can these be dyed?

fender1

Maybe soak them in coffee for a couple of days prior to installation?

madpogue 

Photo?

obrentharris 

I like the coffee suggestion, but if that doesn't work your local auto parts store ought to be able to provide you with a liquid that is painted onto whitewall tires to turn them black. Not tan, I know, but better than white!
Brent

Classtime 

What color is your bike?

Bad Lag

I went looking to buy a Paris-Roubaix (28mm wide rear) and a Strada (25 mm front).

NO CIGAR!

Bad Lag

Bad Lag

I am concerned about uniformity of color (mottling).

I thinnk it is going to come down to either learn to tolerate them or chalk it up to experience and replace them with new tires that are actually black & tan.

If it comes to replacements, I may be offering up some great tires. Maybe I should keep them as spares in case I get cord breakage/blow out or some other catastrophic damage.

P.S. - It's okay to laugh. Sometimes I make dumb mistakes like this. WHITE wall tires! OMG! What were they thinking when they made these?

Classtime 

Yep. You need a new bike for those white sidewalls.

big chainring 

Artist acylic paint in raw sienna. Dilute in water. Brush on a couple coats till you get desired color.

TugaDude

I've had bikes that looked killer with whitewalls. One was a Schwinn Madison singlespeed that was baby blue with white lettering. The tires worked.

Bad Lag

At over $70 per tire, at the very least, I am going to mount them and see how they look.

What a DUMB mistake I made.

I went searching for replacements last night and it turns out Challenge has changed something. The Paris-Roubaix is now 30 mm wide and rated for only 50-75 psi. My existing Parigi-Roubaix rear tire is listed as 28 mm (measures 29mm) and I regularly pump it to 110-120 psi. The Strada tire is listed at higher pressure but still a bit lower than before.

Is this just a marketing ploy to cater to the low pressure fad that's so prevalent now or is the tire different?

masi61

Not a fad! Nice, wide “open tubular” high thread count tires like that give a much better ride at lower pressures in my opinion. Especially recommended is pairing these with latex tubes. I weigh ~190 to 195# and I run 25’s with latex tubes at about 72-79 front and 74-85 rear. Perfectly fast at this pressure and a much less punishing ride.

I will repeat the request for a link or a picture of the “whitewalls”. I personally think white walls look great in the right application such as polished rims which I run on my aluminum Flyte SRS-2.

noobinsf 

Is it these? (Link provided just to understand appearance.)

https://www.omnibikeparts.com/en_US/...ckwhite/49528/

I think those will look entirely inoffensive on your bike, but that's just my 0.02...

TugaDude

I'm not sure what you wanted versus what you needed, but it appears from the Challenge website that the tires you received are tubulars, is that correct? The site that I was on only listed one color in tubulars and that was described as Cream. The tan walls seem to be tires designed to be set up tubeless and then the clinchers are plain black. That's what I got out of it.

Did you really want/need tubulars?

Bad Lag

How did you learn what I ordered?

TugaDude must be an industry insider.

squirtdad

this is what I saw on the challenge site about pressure..for paris roubaux . the ones OP listed seemed low, so I .got curious


Pressure: it’s one of the most important parameters. Pressure changes from tubular to TLR or clincher, also depending on weather conditions and rider’s weight. In the worst cobbles conditions, Paris-Roubaix could be ridden at 4.5/5 BAR (65/75 PSI) for TLR/clincher and 5/5.5 BAR (75/83) for tubulars. In dry conditions, pressure can increase a little bit up to 6/6.5 BAR (90/100 PSI). However, higher pressure is not recommended since the tire won’t absorb the impact in a correct way, causing more easily punctures.

Bad Lag

I read that, too. It is part of the marketing of low pressure "fad" I referred to. It is also a change to the Paris-Roubaix and Strada tire models.

I double checked the tires I have. They are rated for 90-120 psi. They measure 28.0 mm wide when inflated to 110 psi. At least I got that part right when ordering.

Today, I mounted the Paris-Roubaix rear tire and went for a ride.

These surely are nice tires. If one had the needle and thread to do it, you could stitch a seam and have a very nice tubular tire. Yes, they really are that nice.

It's just that they are, well,... WHITE.

I'm mounting the Strada front tire tomorrow. It, too, is WHITE.

masi61

Bad Lag - could you give feedback about what type of inner tubes you are running? Butyl or Latex? Also just curious but which rims do you have these mounted on?

Your repeating your belief that there is some kind of marketing of low pressure and “fad”, my response to this is that it is not a fad. Yeah, I get it that if you read some of the advertising hyperbole of say, Rene Herse then yeah maybe they are taking it a bit too far sure.

But you taking a supple tire like these Challenge tires in a 28 width and insisting on running them at 110 psi just sounds stubborn on your part.

davester

...and here I thought that running tires at extremely high pressures was a 1980s fad.

Bad Lag

Stop with the personal attacks.

You may have different experiences than I. This is what I do and why I do it that way.

I do what works for me. This is my experience, repeated over and again across the last 60 years of cycling using tubulars and clinchers.

How could you say I run "extremely high pressure" if you do not know what I weigh? I run what works. My experience has taught me what to use and, as it turns out, it is right in line with a lot of the tire pressure recommendations I read.

Whenever I run my tires at even moderately low pressure, I get flat tires from glass. It happened just last Friday when I was too lazy to pump them up and consciously thought, well, it's okay because everyone says running at lower pressures is a good thing.
This was the justification or rationalization I used. I knew it was wrong and sure enough, I got a flat from glass mid-ride.

Likewise, I do not use a wider (28 mm) tire in the rear because wide tires are the latest and greatest, I do so because when I use a more narrow tire (25mm), I get flats from glass. I do not get pinch flats, ever.

More personal and opinion based on my experience - latex tubes are terrible. I just dumped a set of Vittoria tubes. They ride nicely but it seems to be as much about their lower weight and their different sound as it is ride quality. You have to pump them up before every single ride or they flat out (reference the above). There is no amount of ride quality improvement that makes up for frequent flats (1/wk or 1/mo). I never have those problems with butyl tubes.

Right now, I am using Conti Race 28 tubes and Challenge tires on MAVIC MA-2 rims.

I think I'll just go for a ride. After all, I have new WHITE tires on my bike and want to "break them in". Maybe the sun and sand will darken them.

madpogue 

Leave your tires in this thread, and the hate-ahz will color them by peeing all over them.....

fender1

I have no dog in the fight but I stopped using Challenge tires because they seemed be flat-prone in my experience. I thought the ride was nice but it seemed any type of road debris would result in flat. Glass, thorns, wire strands and I also found them unnecessarily difficult to mount, when new across a variety of rim types.

I also found that after they were mounted and stretched, they had a tendency roll right off the rim after becoming flat while riding. I decided to move on. YMMV.

Bad Lag

See, different people, different experiences. By contrast - when kept properly inflated I have no flatting; I have no trouble mounting or removing them. I've been riding Challenge tires for quite a while now, somewhere around 15 years, maybe more, maybe a little less.

That bit about "rolling off the rim" sounds scary. I haven't experienced that and hope I never do. :-)

I just wish these weren't WHITE. :-)

fender1

I was not being a smart a** when I mentioned coffee as a way of staining the white rubber at the beginning of this thread. It is a pretty common way of "aging" things in the vintage guiter & antique hooby space. Get a jar of freeze dried coffee at the supermarket and you can adjust the "strength" of you brew for staining.