Airless tires have so much resistance that you'd rather change a flat every 10 miles! We tested a set of airless tires for our latest tire test (Bicycle Quarterly Spring 2013), and found that they used 50% more power than a good racing tire. Maintaining 20 mph was very hard work. And in corners, they squirmed so much that it was really disconcerting. With all that, the lack of comfort was the smallest problem...
Pneumatic tires were the biggest advance in cycling, perhaps even bigger than attaching cranks to the front wheel! Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly http://www.bikequarterly.com Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ On Thursday, May 2, 2013 5:54:58 PM UTC-7, pb wrote: > > For an urban utility/runaround bike with small diameter wheels, this > strikes me as a very clever idea. I was waiting to discover that the tires > were non-pneumatic, which might make the whole assembly even more > attractive, as there would be no more flats. I wonder if the loops smooth > things out enough to be used with solid tires. > Making fun of this idea from the point of view of a cyclist who uses > 700c-ish wheels is to miss the point, and the inventor seems to have a > pretty good understanding and appreciation of how bicycles work. > > pb > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
