Welp, my second cyclocross season is done and dusted. Last year I learned most of the hard lessons: nail down the pre-race logistics, session the course, and always experiment with tire choice. This season, however, there was little choosing to be done when it came to treads. 

Since July, my home state of West Virginia has been the epicenter of a drought spanning much of Appalachia, the Rust Belt and the Mid-Atlantic. Creeks and small rivers are showing their rocky beds, and what little rain we get soaks straight through the earth, leaving the surface parched and dusty just hours after rainfall. To most cyclocrossers this means one thing when it comes to tire choice— file treads, file treads, file treads. I tried out the Challenge Almanzo Pro Series for a few races this year, and what follows is my candid review of the lesser-known offering from the Italian rubber supplier.

Before we get into it, check out Challenge’s website. You will notice that the Almanzo is not found under the “cyclocross” banner, but is instead marketed as a gravel tire. If you are looking for a dedicated ‘cross file tread from Challenge, you have three options. Koksijde is a full-file designed for the sandiest courses and currently only available as a tubular. Dune offers a bit more bite on the side knobs and comes in both clincher and tubular iterations. Anecdotally, the Chicane is the file tread I’ve seen the most in my limited experience. It still has diamonds up the center, but it features the same shoulders as Challenge’s iconic Limus mud tire, which gives the tire solid speed in a straight line with optimal bite in the corners— something a lot of file treads lack.

If it sounds like I know the Chicane tread well, it’s because I do. To make things extra confusing, I spent the early part of last season on the 33mm Gravel Grinder, which borrows its tread pattern directly from the Chicane. After a somewhat positive experience with the Gravel Grinder, I started this season out on some poverty-spec Chicanes. You get what you pay for, and I was not impressed. They blew up to a gargantuan 34.5mm despite my rims’ tiny internal width of 15mm. At lower pressures, the sidewall felt incredibly weak, which I attributed partly to my rim choice, but my friends noted the same issue on their equal-spec Chicanes and Grifos with wider rims. At the end of most ‘cross practices, at least one of us had burped a tire or ended up with some turf in the bead. I also began to wonder if the mud-worthy side knobs were necessary for such dry conditions, but still, I had no intention of buying a second set of file treads. 

To my great fortune, however, I was awarded a pair of 33mm Almanzos for my exploits in a local single-speed race. According to the box, this would be a huge upgrade from my Chicanes. The Almanzo features a 260 TPI Super Poly Corazza Armor compared to the Chicane’s boilerplate 120 TPI casing, which Challenge alleges can improve ride quality without sacrificing sidewall support. The PPS2 strip adds a second layer of puncture protection over other handmade tires from Challenge. This is a nice bonus for the Almanzo’s intended gravelista audience, but I mostly looked past it. 

The tread pattern is what really caught my eye. The diamonds in the Almanzo are noticeably taller than those on the Chicane or Gravel Grinder, which ostensibly would provide improved traction with the bike steered straight, while also improving durability. For comparison, my Chicanes’ center was visibly worn down after just 150-ish miles. On the Almanzo’s shoulders, the overkill side-knobs from the Chicane are substituted for circles and semi circles, reminiscent of Challenge’s classic Grifo tread. There is a noticeable lack of true side knobs on the Almanzo, with only 30mm of functional tread compared to the Chicane’s 40mm at the advertised 33mm size, which made me apprehensive about using the tire for ‘cross. Still, my curiosity got the best of me. We had seen a Challenge ‘cross tire wheedle its way into the gravel market with some subtle rebranding. Wouldn’t it be funny if a gravel tire got appropriated by cyclocrossers?

The Almanzo's "functional" tread area is super narrow.

The Gravel Grinder/Chicane's is not.

To even the score, I mounted the Almanzos up a few days before BikenetiCX. Challenge handmade clinchers get a bad wrap for being, well, challenging to mount. I’m of the opinion that 99% of tires can (and should) be mounted without using a tire lever, but Challenge handmades belong to that pesky 1%. Once mounted, however, they seated right up. This could not be said for the cheap Chicanes and Gravel Grinders, which both required me to get soapy water involved. 

I was shocked to see how narrow they blew up. At just 32mm, I was not only sacrificing a millimeter under the tire’s advertised width, but I was sitting 2.5mm narrower than my 33mm Chicanes on the same rims. I predicted that this might translate to some free speed, but between the bare bones tread and the lost width, I was worried about pressures and cornering with confidence. 

With a millimeter to spare... Check out how tall those diamonds are, too!

At my weekly ‘cross practice I began playing around with tire pressure. With new tires I like to start out at around 30 PSI, then gradually let a little air out until I begin hitting rim and feeling the sidewall fold over. Using this method, I clocked a stiff 27 PSI as the point where I began hitting rim, although the sidewalls still felt good. This is certainly on the high side of tubeless pressures for ‘cross, but given the narrower width I was not too surprised. I had to run similar pressure in my Chicanes simply for their lack of sidewall strength. Regardless, the tire offered great traction in turns and off-cambers, and I didn’t really notice myself missing the Chicane’s mud birds in such dry conditions. The tire was noticeably faster than a Chicane, likely becasue the low-profile shoulders are way out pf the picture unless you really lean the bike over. I was impressed, and with testing out of the way, I decided to dive into the race weekend aboard the Almanzo. 

BikenetiCX is an awesome course. Between the constant surface changes, the elevation profile and the harrowing off-cambers, it is super technically demanding. Add Halloween, food trucks and beer, and the vibe is pretty hard to beat. Naturally I doubled up, but having carpooled to the race I could only manage one bike and some wheels with mud tubulars glued up. The course was predictably dry, so I rolled with the Almanzos at 27 PSI and zip-tied my shifter for the single-speed race.  

MABRA single-speed fields are super deep in both quality and quantity, and on this particular day most of the local heavy hitters were there among the field of 50-or-so likeminded kooks. In pre-ride, the off camber section was giving me a bit of trouble. I had adequate traction, but getting the line right to turn onto the off-camber was giving me grief. After a good start and a few laps, I found myself battling for a podium position and gaining more and more confidence with the course as the race went on. Everything was going great until I shralped the turn into the bad off-camber, broke the seal on my rear tire and went totally flat. Bummer. 

Without an air compressor I couldn’t seat it back up, so I started the elite race with a pit wheel in the rear. Another good start found me battling for a top five, when in the same exact section, I flatted the same way on my front tire. I made the long run to the pit again, threw on the other pit wheel and started taking hand-ups. 

I cannot blame the tire. Because the flats happened in the same place on the course, I chalk it all up to my own deficiencies in handling. Later tests would also confirm that my pump reads about 2 PSI high, meaning what I thought was 27 PSI was really only 25 PSI. I decided to run the tire again for the following race weekend with my BikenetiCX experience in mind, and I had my best result of the season in similar conditions on an equally technical course. Racoon CX features an extended singletrack section and several challenging off-cambers. Even with a little more pressure, I didn’t notice any major sacrifice in comfort. I did manage to wash out in an unsuspecting turn, but again, we could all afford to work on our cornering a bit. 

It would be interesting to see Challenge correct their sizing on the Almanzo to take advantage of the millimeter they left on the table. A 33mm tire from a brand should fit the same as any other 33 from the same brand. I understand having a fourth file tread in the 'cross portfolio is a bit silly, and that Challenge's product universe is already a bit tangled, but the Almanzo's high-profile diamonds help it to stand out from Challenge's more well-known file treads. Even if the Almanzo's fate is to remain a gravel tire forever, I'm surprised to see that it is only offered in a 33mm width. 

All said, the Almanzo Pro Series is a great option for dry racing on fast courses. If you’re not afraid to give up a bit of volume on your tires, it’s a super snappy tread that still offers great traction and superior ride quality. Plus, you get to defy the Big Gravel marketing gods.