Challenge

S.C. Latex Tube

You may not consider the lowly inner tube when it comes time to lighten up your ride. Sure, it isn't the difference between a steel frame and a carbon frame, but if you're counting grams, a pair of Challenge S.C. Latex Tubes are one of the least expensive ways to improve your riding experience.

Challenge Latex Tubes have a couple advantages over their butyl cousins. Latex is far more elastic and puncture-resistant than butyl. Therefore latex tubes are able to be made thinner than butyl tubes. This means that they're lighter weight, are more flexible, and accordingly, have less rolling-resistance. And, just as importantly, the aforementioned equates to a significant dampening of road vibration. The slight disadvantage with latex tubes, however, is that they are porous and naturally lose air a little quicker than butyl tubes. It's not really a big deal, but something worth noting. Because of this, we generally use our latex tubes on our race-day wheels and run butyl tubes for training.

That said, we strongly recommend against using latex tubes with carbon clincher wheels—a sentiment shared by most major wheel, tube, and tire manufacturers. Since the carbon braking surface heats up more than alloy, it can cause latex tubes to burst and fail. If you're running carbon clinchers, go with butyl tubes.