There have been solid, foam filled or gell filled bike tires for a long time.
The fundamental problem is that the ring of pressurized air in a pneumatic tire is a shock absorber. When you hit a bump the entire tire (even the part that isn’t touching the ground) contributes to the dampening because it turns into a shock wave in the donut of air. When you switch to any sort of tire that doesn’t have pressurized air in it, the dampening can only occur by deforming the tire in contact with the ground, and it’s not going to be anywhere near as good. Typically you end up with a tradeoff between uncomfortable ride on the one side, and bottoming out on the rim and lots of rolling friction on the other.
I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I’m willing to give these a chance. If they can make tires that are almost as good as air ones but require less maintenance, they’ll be worth it for some people. If those metal rings aren’t too stiff, it should work.
There have been solid, foam filled or gell filled bike tires for a long time.
The fundamental problem is that the ring of pressurized air in a pneumatic tire is a shock absorber. When you hit a bump the entire tire (even the part that isn’t touching the ground) contributes to the dampening because it turns into a shock wave in the donut of air. When you switch to any sort of tire that doesn’t have pressurized air in it, the dampening can only occur by deforming the tire in contact with the ground, and it’s not going to be anywhere near as good. Typically you end up with a tradeoff between uncomfortable ride on the one side, and bottoming out on the rim and lots of rolling friction on the other.
I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I’m willing to give these a chance. If they can make tires that are almost as good as air ones but require less maintenance, they’ll be worth it for some people. If those metal rings aren’t too stiff, it should work.
These are street tires. Unless you weigh like 10kg the pressurized air isn’t doing much of anything for dampening.
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