Kenda Alluvium Pro tyre

The Kenda Alluvium Pro hits the mark as being both a fast and grippy tyre for gravel adventures and highly capable on the road. Though they struggle a little in the mud, they hold their own on dusty dry tracks and rough, rocky trails. With easy tubeless setup and a price to match the competition, these would be a great choice if you plan some adventure miles this summer.

• Pros: Grippy low-profile knobs making for low rolling resistance and fast riding
• Cons: Tough time in any significant mud

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Off-road

Starting in their natural habitat, the Alluvium Pros find impressively high levels of grip on dry, dusty tracks, making for some fast times on your local trails. Even in the wet, with a little lower tyre pressure, the low-profile tread holds its own and gives you confidence to bank the bike in the corners. On rockier terrain, the Alluvium Pros stay strong, absorbing impacts well with minimal issue when run at both higher pressure with tubes and medium pressure tubeless.

Stay clear of any significant mud, or you'll find yourself needing some serious torque control to avoid a spinning rear wheel, but hopefully the worst of the mud is drying up now. And what the Kenda tyre may lack here, it more than makes up for on the gravel and road.

Road

Designed to be 'as capable on pavement as single track trails', the Alluvium Pros do ride rather nicely on the road. The low rolling resistance thanks to the low-profile knobs makes for fast, responsive tyres, including in the rain. Finding the right mid-range pressure balance helps to soften out the rough roads, while the single tread rubber compound provides all the grip you need.

The transition to the slightly larger outer tread knobs always feels a little strange when cornering at speed on tarmac, but at no point do you feel on the edge of grip. This extra tread is well worth it when cornering in the dirt.

Size

I have to say I applaud Kenda for providing a simplistic range of options for its Alluvium Pros. There are four sizes to choose from: 700C x 35, 40 and 45mm, and 650B x 45mm. All are folding bead, tubeless ready and have a thread count of 120TPI.

Other tyres, including the Donnelly X'Plor MSOs which I tested a while back, have more options for thread count, widths and non-tubeless. Personally, I like how you can just make a simple choice based on your bike's tyre clearance and know you're getting the best configuration.

You may disagree if you want a cheaper option that has a lower thread count or you don't need them to be tubeless ready, but for anyone new to gravel riding it's nice to just pick the size and point it down the trail.

Protection

The Alluvium Pro has a GCT (gravel casing technology) protective casing from bead to bead, allowing the tubeless conversion, helping with sidewall reinforcement and sub-tread protection. Kenda itself only rates the tyre protection at 3/5, but I was impressed. Despite running tubes for a while on some rocky trails, I had no flats during testing. That was partly from running higher pressure with tubes, but even when tubeless there were no issues of slashes or cuts to the sidewall or tread.

Wear and tubeless setup

Tyre wear was also minimal over the two months of testing despite some road miles mixed in with the gravel. A little pressure loss over a few rides was noticeable when running tubeless, but nothing out of the ordinary. Although the initial mounting of the tyre was easy enough when converting to tubeless, you will likely need a tubeless inflator because of the high volume of air needed to get the beads seated.

Value

At £50 they're on a par with some and cheaper than others: they're a penny more than the Bontrager GR2 TLR tyres, for example, and £15 cheaper than the Donnelly X'Plor MSOs I mentioned earlier.

> Buyer's Guide: 18 of the best gravel & adventure tyres

Last point to note is that Kenda has added a reflective 'Hot Patch' to the sidewall of the tyre to help with visibility in low light situations. I can't say I noticed it making a huge difference, but still a nice touch on the ever critical safety issue.

The Kenda Alluvium Pro tyre is a confidence-boosting, fast option to fill your summer adventure needs at a price matching the competition. Any cyclo-cross fans out there might want to consider it for their summer racing, provided your league isn't too strict on tyre widths. Personally, it's my tyre of choice for my gravel riding.

Verdict

Excellent summer adventure tyre to get you flying along the trails or quiet lanes