Kenda Cholla Pro

Kenda's Cholla Pro is a supple tubeless-ready mud-conquering tyre for skinnier-framed bikes at a fairly sensible price. If you like it mucky and flat-free, it's a great option – particularly if you have limited clearance.

The Cholla Pro has a striking squared-off tread profile, with no chance of getting tyre orientation wrong; arrows point forwards folks. Based on "the hooks and barbs of the cholla cactus", says Kenda, this is somewhat ironically not a tyre for the desert – at just under 33mm fitted to a 19mm rim, you're more likely to dig into soft sand than float over it.

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Unlike the Flintridge Pro tyre reviewed recently, Kenda has erred on the side of smaller, with the Cholla measuring 32.3mm on a 19mm Mavic Open Pro rim that saw the 35mm Flintridge measuring 36mm.

This ties in with the UCI's 2010 cyclo-cross tyre size regulation of 33mm, a contentious limitation meant to level the playing field for less-cash-rich racers but unintentionally penalising heavier riders by not allowing them to run fatter rubber and benefit from the inherent suspension performance for a given pressure. Also somewhat ironically with tyres like the Cholla Pro now tubeless, being able to run supple, grippy low pressures without risk of flatting is now well within the reach of anyone able to pay £38 RRP (or less online). This is a much cheaper and lower-faff option than gluing up expensive tubular tyres that are then very hard to swap unless you own multiple wheelsets.

The fact that Kenda has kept the Cholla Pro at a svelte 33mm while making it supple with a 120TPI casing and tubeless to boot is a boon for those of us with older bikes who would be hard-pressed to fit anything fatter. Modern performance can be yours, yea 80s steel 'crosser pilot.

Of course not everyone is concerned about being nabbed by a calliper-wielding UCI anorak on the startline at Little Whingeing's parish fundraiser CX blast. What the Cholla Pro gives the everyday rider is awesome grip when it gets mucky, and traction over slippery obstacles. Kenda also does a softer-compound version of the Cholla Pro ('CX-DTC'), for racers in freezing conditions or on extreme courses.

Fitting the Cholla Pros was a no-faff affair, the tyre rolling onto the rim with thumbs only, and inflating first time using the rather fab Beto Air tank. My sealant du jour is Slime Pro, because it cleans up in water, can be re-used between tyres and doesn't go off/dry out.

Kenda recommends between 30 and 50psi; I settled on 38 rear, 35 front for my 85kg all-up rider-bike combo, allowing for reasonably rocky, rooty trails here in the Perthshire Highlands.

On tarmac the Cholla Pro rolls okay – not as well as the more dry-gravel-road-orientated Flintridge Pro, but these are different beasts. It's once properly off-road that the Cholla Pro comes into its own. Pointing it at grassy off-camber verges, muddy slopes, eroded steep gullies or mossy central strips, I was hard-pressed to find the limits of traction in any direction. There is oodles of grip on offer over wet, rooty, rocky trails, at the limit of forward motion – no doubt helped by the supple 120TPI carcass. With a less-squared-off, uniform height tread profile across the tyre there's no noticeable transition when cornering as the side knobs begin to bite, which gives more confidence.

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Given the choice and no need to stay on the happy side of UCI regulations I would always say go for fatter tyres at lower pressures, on or off-road, and critically for loaded touring. But if you are constricted by startline rules or the physical limitations of your frame, the Cholla Pro is a sensibly priced high-performance choice for blasting about in the seriously mucky stuff.

Verdict

An excellent, cost-effective choice for fast, flat-free off-roading, particularly if frame clearance is an issue