Looks a bit like tire inserts - basically foam rings you put inside the tire, common on mountain bikes. I just installed that on my bike, which not only protects my rims but also lets me ride home from the trail with a flat tire. https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/best-tubeless...
Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Sealant, poured into the tyre or injected through the valve, helps plug any tiny leaks. This sealant stays liquid inside the tyre and will heal small punctures suffered while riding." Isn't that basically the same as Slime, which is (from what I understand) widely reviled in the biking community?
Not sure about road biking, but at least in the mountain and gravel communities it's almost universal. There are 3 popular sealant brands that I'm aware of: Stans, Orange Seal, and Slime.
I have been riding and racing bikes since 1990, and I think tubeless is one of the best real innovations. Fixing flats sucks.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#43For normal world applications, a tubeless[1] setup will perform infinitely better. Though less eye-catchy. [1] https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/tubeless/
I have two bikes - one tubleess, one tubed.
On my tubed bike, other than 1 or 2 flats in the last 5 years, these tires have required 0 maintenance. Even after dusting the bike off from the winter, they pump right up and are ready to go.
My tubeless tires are a constant source of headache. They are constantly going flat, sometimes weekly, requiring more sealant, stuck valve cores, etc.
Overall, I'd say my tubeless tires require monthly maintenance, while my tubed tires have basically never required any thought at all. What am I missing here?
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#44Inshallah someone will commercialize this and make it with actual tennis balls. I must do this.
Not using tennis balls, but this has been a real product for atv tires for a while: https://www.powersportsid.com/tireballs/
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#45Okay, dumb question from someone who rides a bike but is not a "cyclist." Road bikes have a pretty high tire pressure, to the point that the tire itself basically offers no cushion at all, on it's own. Why are these tires pneumatic at all? Why not wrap a rubber donut around the rim and call it a day? I'm sure part of the answer is weight, but surely this can be reduced either by making the rubber relatively thin, or…
Even at 100psi, there is significant cushioning behavior from a pneumatic tire for contact patches the size that road tires do.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#46For normal world applications, a tubeless[1] setup will perform infinitely better. Though less eye-catchy. [1] https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/tubeless/
A lesson I've learned over years of cycling and maintaining other kinds of machines, is that all fluids require maintenance. Of course the air in the tires is also a fluid. But introducing yet another fluid to overcome a maintenance issue, is virtually guaranteed to introduce yet another maintenance issue. Ultimately it comes down to a matter of tradeoffs.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#47For normal world applications, a tubeless[1] setup will perform infinitely better. Though less eye-catchy. [1] https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/tubeless/
I have two bikes - one tubleess, one tubed. On my tubed bike, other than 1 or 2 flats in the last 5 years, these tires have required 0 maintenance. Even after dusting the bike off from the winter, they pump right up and are ready to go. My tubeless tires are a constant source of headache. They are constantly going flat, sometimes weekly, requiring more sealant, stuck valve cores, etc. Overall, I'd say my tubeless tir…
idk there's some finesse I had to learn when switching to tubeless. They do need a little maintenance and it took a while to get a feel for it and not cause more problems.
If you're only getting 2 flats in five years though yeah stick with tubes. I get 3-4 a year and they're much less of an event with tubeless, so the extra routine work pays off.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#48This hack has been known to the dirt bike community for a while now. https://www.google.com/search?q=dirt+bike+tennis+balls&tbm=i...
Also, there's no need to make this so complicated, you can just shove the tennis balls into a normal tire.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#49Everyone who plays tennis knows that tennis balls don't retain their pressure for very long once outside their pressurized cannister, though. I can't tell if this article is just ignoring that fact or if they are actually running on "flat" balls. (Balls that are too flat to play with still have some pressure and might work fine, I guess, though it seems like riding on them would just flatten them more.)
> I can't tell if this article is just ignoring that fact or if they are actually running on "flat" balls
You mean flat ball, right? They have 30 balls in a tire. If one goes flat, then they are running on 29/30 balls.
Re: Tennis balls serve as decent bicycle tires that don’t easily puncture
#50Okay, dumb question from someone who rides a bike but is not a "cyclist." Road bikes have a pretty high tire pressure, to the point that the tire itself basically offers no cushion at all, on it's own. Why are these tires pneumatic at all? Why not wrap a rubber donut around the rim and call it a day? I'm sure part of the answer is weight, but surely this can be reduced either by making the rubber relatively thin, or…
In case you don't know, you probably don't need to pump your tire up to the stated pressure on the side of it.
Check out these guides for more specific numbers, but generally if you're ~160lbs, you can get away with 80psi or lower when running tires wider than 25mm.