This post is about winter tire selection. I recently purchased my winter training tires and wanted to share some thoughts about what I selected to run. After the end of cyclocross season I decided that I wanted to take of the 700X32 Challenge Grifos I had been using and switch back to a durable all-season road tire for my upcoming base miles. In the past I have trained on tires that were a little more race oriented but decided that it just didn't make sense to do that. I had notoriously bad luck when it came to flats this fall season and probably had about 15-20 flats in all. Because of all of these things I was looking for a tire that would be extremely durable, with a little bit of tread to get me through the winter grit and be good to ride on dirt roads, and with a good amount of flat protection. I ended up going for some Specialized Armadillo Roubaix folding tires (as seen here). They are decently weighted for being a pretty strong tire (although I'm not too concerned about weight on my training tire) and have a really nice tread pattern. The center of the tire is smooth like a summer tire which helps keep rolling resistance down while the sides of the tires have a crossing tread pattern to provide traction while cornering. So far I've found them to feel really great while riding and to be surprisingly supple.
My next challenge will be to find a tubular for racing on this summer. I'm thinking that I'd like to go with something with a tan sidewall and a friend of mine suggested that I run a pair of Challenges. I'm pretty hesitant to do this as I had a lot of problems with tread of my CX Challenge tires separating from the carcass of the tire. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My boss has Schwalbe Milano tubulars on his TT bike and they look great. Has anyone ridden them and can tell me about them?
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