Road Bike Tire Test: Challenge Strada Pro HTLR 28

The Strada Pro is Challenge's all-round road bike tire and it's been updated for the 2026 model year. We already tested an older 25 mm version of the Strada Pro TLR back in 2022 (read our review) and found it to be an average performer in our tests. The previous test gives us a good starting point, and it's interesting to see how the newer tubeless version stacks up to the best tires of the last couple of years.

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We've been in contact with Challenge, and the 2026 update is more about ease of mounting and inflation than performance. We're happy about that, as some of Challenge's tires were notoriously hard to mount. We sometimes had to mount their tires on a different wheel first before mounting them on the test wheel to pre-stretch the bead a bit and to get some "shape" in the tires.

And that shape is exactly the update that Challenge made to the Strada Pro, as the tires now come with "Easy-Fit Shape", a new moulding process that pre-forms the tires for easier installation and inflation. If you've ever had one of Challenge's tires in your hands, you'll know they were basically a flat piece of fabric with a strip of rubber moulded on, which made installation much harder than with other tires that already have the round tire shape right out of the box.

We can confirm the new "Easy-Fit Shape" tires are much easier to mount. The tires are still relatively flat, but we could get them onto the rim quite easily, and they now have an easy-to-average ease of mounting. We suspect the bead diameter has also been increased a bit, as getting them over the rim edges posed no problem. Inflating was also much easier, even with the easier-to-mount beads, and we consider this a huge upgrade for Challenge.

The new Easy-Fit Shape Strada Pro is available in 25-622, 28-622, 30-622, 32-622, and even 35-622 sizes, another upgrade over the old versions. You can also choose between black sidewalls or the traditional tan/yellow sidewall colors for which Challenge tires are known. We've tested the 28-622 size with the tan sidewalls and will compare it to the 2022 25-622 Strada Pro TLR (read our review), Criterium RS 30-622 (read our review), and the latest and greatest tires from competing brands.

The updated 2026 Challenge Strada Pro Handmade TLR performs spot-on to the 25-622 version we tested in 2022 (read our review), which means the update is limited to the Easy-Fit shape that makes mounting and inflating much easier (confirmed by us).

The 28-622 sample has a slightly higher tread thickness than the 25 mm sample, which results in slightly higher puncture resistance. The sidewalls are thinner, but that is a result of the 28 vs 25 mm size. The sidewall thickness across sizes is a technicality we also see with other cotton-casing tires. Because the sidewalls on the larger sizes are "longer," a larger portion of the sidewall is covered by just a single layer of casing material.

When we compare the Strada Pro HTLR to the competition, we see that significant progress has been made in overall tire performance since 2022, raising the bar. The Achilles heel of the Strada Pro remains its wet grip on hard surfaces, where most of the competition has made significant improvements since we launched our wet grip test back in 2021. We've also seen new Cotton tires released, like the Cadex Aero Cotton (read our review), Bontrager Aeolus RSL (read our review), and the "cotton-gold-standard" Vittoria Corsa Pro TLR (read our review), which set new standards for cotton tires.