[HN Gopher] Tennis Balls Serve as Decent Bicycle Tires That Don'...
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Tennis Balls Serve as Decent Bicycle Tires That Don't Easily
Puncture
Author : rolph
Score : 57 points
Date : 2023-04-03 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.com)
| HopenHeyHi wrote:
| [flagged]
| rolph wrote:
| this caught my eye as similar to a concept from long past
| readings its not a new concept,
|
| e.g https://www.evolutionwheel.com/blog/advantages-of-
| segmented-...
|
| this was proposed for consumer automotive, as a tire with a
| number of wedges/segments with a sealed pneumatic core. you would
| buy an allotment of these tire segments and replace individual
| ones in moments as need be. maybe i read about it from a mid-80s
| issue of Omni.
|
| i thought the bicycle would be a good start vs cars n trucks
| karussell wrote:
| I think Continental had something similar near production
| already but cannot find a link.
|
| edit: looks like every tyre manufacturer has an "airless"
| product:
|
| https://www.bridgestone.com/technology_innovation/air_free_c...
|
| https://corporate.goodyear.com/us/en/responsibility/blog/adv...
|
| https://www.michelin.com/en/innovation/vision-concept/airles...
| rascul wrote:
| The Michelin tire was on HN in 2019, with 131 comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20113174
| jp57 wrote:
| Everyone 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.)
| asdff wrote:
| Maybe that only matters for playing tennis. These look almost
| like the design of any other airless tire, only instead of a
| rubber tire with holes in it they are holding together the
| tennis balls to form this sort of shape. I think it only
| matters that they are able to hold their shape up, not that
| they remain springy or anything.
| acchow wrote:
| > 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.
| hammock wrote:
| Maybe they are using practice balls, which don't go flat
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| This is innovation. Do stupid shit and see if it works.
| slg wrote:
| It is interest that from a functional perspective these are just
| traditional tires with thicker walls to prevent punctures and
| internally compartmentalized to reduce the impact of a puncture.
| asdff wrote:
| Its the same design as any other airless tire, whether it be on
| an electric scooter or a skid steer
| q845712 wrote:
| it reminds me of the Titanic - because one of your compartments
| can get a puncture but it definitely totally won't affect any
| of the other ones at all.
| carabiner wrote:
| Inshallah someone will commercialize this and make it with actual
| tennis balls. I must do this.
| durkie wrote:
| Not using tennis balls, but this has been a real product for
| atv tires for a while: https://www.powersportsid.com/tireballs/
| whalesalad wrote:
| This is wicked cool and I want it on my fatbike asap! Might need
| to attempt and DIY this.
| [deleted]
| brudgers wrote:
| On the build versus buy axis, Solid bicycle tires are an ordinary
| product.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=solid+bicycle+tires&ie=UTF-8...
|
| They predate pneumatic bicycle tires.
| ninkendo wrote:
| How's the braking performance? Wouldn't the tennis balls function
| as a kind of high-friction ball bearing, and allow the outer tire
| to slip when stopping?
| hanspragt wrote:
| The balls are inserted into PVC rings, which are screwed to the
| hub, so they can't move. (In my mind this also means that the
| tire is made of PVC rings and that the balls serve more as
| decoration, but hey)
| latchkey wrote:
| Exactly! Surprised I had to read this far down for anyone to
| realize that little detail. To be fair, the balls kind of
| spread the covering tire out beyond the rings...
| klyrs wrote:
| I'm concerned about the tire slipping off on a corner, too.
| MDWolinski wrote:
| Yep, that was my thought has well, certainly the in video
| they didn't show any type of turning with any amount of lean
| into it where this would have been an issue.
| karussell wrote:
| Doesn't the metal ring used to bind the tennis ball lose all the
| springiness?
| rascul wrote:
| Looks like it's plastic. PVC I guess.
| [deleted]
| jacobr wrote:
| 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...
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| This 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.
| bityard wrote:
| Okay, 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 using some sort of hard closed-cell
| foam underneath the rubber layer?
| [deleted]
| recursive wrote:
| Even at 100psi, there is significant cushioning behavior from a
| pneumatic tire for contact patches the size that road tires do.
| [deleted]
| thesausageking wrote:
| They exist and are called "airless tires". Tannus is one of the
| most popular brands:
|
| https://tannusamerica.com/pages/tannus-airless-tires
|
| They're solid foam and can't go flat. They're not very popular
| because they don't perform nearly as well as tires with tubes.
| They have a higher rolling resistance (ie, you have to pedal
| harder to go the same speed) and have a rougher ride.
|
| Good quality tires don't puncture that often and, for most
| riders, are worth the trade off.
| currency wrote:
| Solid tires crawl around the rim as you ride them. Okay for
| very low speeds; not okay for cycling speeds.
| glitchc wrote:
| Bingo! That's the main reason why. Compressibility of the
| tire turns rolling friction into a translational force.
| Pneumatic tires also experience a translational force that
| tries to push the tire back and off the rim as it interacts
| with the ground.
| eCa wrote:
| For normal world applications, a tubeless[1] setup will perform
| infinitely better. Though less eye-catchy.
|
| [1] https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/tubeless/
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" 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?
| uxp100 wrote:
| There are (small) differences in wheel and tire design to
| support the sealant based system, and that makes all the
| difference I guess. Slime tubes are pretty reviled, tubeless
| is the hot thing. Besides being more reliable it also allows
| for lower pressures, which is probably the main reason it has
| become popular. There is very little downside for riders
| (tubeless is just a bit slower than high end tubes that very
| few riders use), but for the home mechanic they're a bit of a
| pain to work on.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| I like the slime inner tubes. They've saved me a few times.
| Only on lowish pressure tyres though, I can't imagine they
| work well on a road bike.
| asdff wrote:
| People do get annoyed with tubeless to be honest. Its a mixed
| bag of people who like it because the rolling resistance is 1
| watt lower, and people who hate it because its a lot more
| maintenance keeping up with sealant and hard to patch
| sometimes compared to just throwing in a new tube (which a
| lot of tubeless users end up doing when they get a puncture
| flat anyhow).
| rascul wrote:
| Not sure if they still make them, but some many years ago I
| tried out some Slime tubes that had the stuff built into the
| tube somehow. Not only did it not work to seal punctures, it
| was impossible to patch.
| mbrameld wrote:
| 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.
| davidw wrote:
| I have been riding and racing bikes since 1990, and I think
| tubeless is one of the best real innovations. Fixing flats
| sucks.
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| No. I've been riding a road tubeless setup in Seattle and
| surrounding countryside for half a decade now and the feel
| has nothing to do with Slime. 55mm x ISO 559 lightweight road
| tires with Orange Seal. (In the NW we like wide road tires :
| )
|
| Something like 10k miles later I've had zero incidents where
| I had to fix something on the road. You do have to more
| maintenance (e.g. make sure you have adequate sealant in the
| tires periodically) but for regular year round use
| especially, it is a worthwhile trade.
| analog31 wrote:
| 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 another fluid to overcome a maintenance issue,
| is virtually guaranteed to introduce another maintenance issue.
| Ultimately it comes down to a matter of tradeoffs.
| turdprincess wrote:
| 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?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| skydhash wrote:
| In my country, children use tennis balls (they are cheap) to play
| some version of football in halls or some enclosed space. The
| tennis ball is shaved because it will get dirty and wet. It
| results in an extremely slippery and bouncy ball.
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(page generated 2023-04-03 23:01 UTC)