Bike tires made from NASA’s bizarre shape-shifting metal are now available to buy
No more bicycle flats, forever.
The verge is completely wrong in this headline.
They wrote "are now available to buy".
No. It's a Kickstarter that might ship next year. The headline should have been "Bike tires made from NASA’s bizarre shape-shifting metal might be available to buy next year if the crowdfunding campaign isn't a scam"
No. It’s a Kickstarter that might ship next year. The headline should have been “Bike tires made from NASA’s bizarre shape-shifting metal might be available to buy next year if the crowdfunding campaign isn’t a scam”
The second I see the words "kickstarter or indiegogo" I already know whatever I saw may as well be unobtanium
If it makes its way to a storefront then I'll consider it, otherwise I'll just move on and keep my money
Maybe checkout crowdsupply. They have a 100% successfull fulfillment rate.
Available to buy, not to have. Hah
might ship next year won't ever ship
FTFY.
This is just Kickstarter scam #362646683 that takes people's money and then... well, profit that's it. They won't ship products because they don't have products, they don't have anything
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.
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.
I mean, these new tires do deform with the ground. That's the "revolutionary tech" they brag about; the rings are designed to compress a bit and deform to compensate for impact, but always bounce back to their original shape no matter how much force is exerted on them. So you get a simulated air pressure.
these new tires do deform with the ground
They aren't saying they don't. The foam and gel tires they mentioned also deform with the ground. Like you said, the rings only compress a bit at the site of the impact. Person you're replying to is pointing out that pneumatic tires disperse this impact across the whole tire
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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And at only about 10 times the cost of traditional bicycle tires, you’ll only need to not replace your tires about 11 times for this to be cost-effective!
It might be worth it to not have to ever worry about having a flat.
Tubeless tires solves that issue aswell. You can drive over nails and the sealant inside the tire automatically plugs the hole.
Give it a decade and economies of scale, and maybe it will get it down to twice as expensive.
10 mins of internet relevance, a lifetime of obscurity and never being mentioned again
If we could all be so lucky.
Everybody pay attention to this guy for 10 minutes
Lost me at "the first consumer product we’re aware of to use nitinol".
There were nitinol eyeglass frames back in the 1980s.
My handheld radio antennas are nitinol, I can bend them to fin in a bag or tie them in a loose knot and they don't deform.
That they’re aware of?! This just reads like they didn’t bother to do any research.
I do everything on a roadbike and fixed gear, which are claimed to have the highest risk of getting a flat tire.
I usually have 2 flats a year which cost around 6€. I usually get a new pair of tires roughly once a year "just to be safe" when i notice the rubber showing oddities or they start losing grip a little. I usually go for continental GP (4kII/5k) tires if they are discounted and pay roughly 80€ for a pair.
I'm curious to see if this "no flat" tire will be cheaper and if it can be run tubeless.
I don't believe they have air in them but I'll believe the claims when I see it.
Other note. Tannus tires are fine if you want that sort of thing.
Well, as to the last point the metal is providing internal rigidity, so that's why there's no inner tubing.
But agreed. I cannot see this trumping my replacement costs during my lifetime. It's cool, and it might be more environment-friendly, but cost/benefit calculation says no.
Despite all of the "this is new" in the article, nitinol has been around for a long time. I have a great set of small split rings made of nitinol from at least a decade ago. Wish I could get more of them.
Pretty sure this was on US Dragons Den and it got laughed out due to the cost. I'm like, yeah cost is pretty high initially but when the hell we gonna move on from rubber?
There is still rubber even with these.
People these days pay more for bike tires than car tires these days already. There are $10k bikes now. Seems there's no amount of money some people won't pay for bike parts these days.
Wonder if they'd work as skateboard wheels, that'd be pretty sick
Dude! Those are the first step to getting the skate wheels from Snow Crash!
100% a scam.
No one is ever getting a product from this.
Looks heavy.
The Kickstarter page puts it at 450g, which seems to be fairly good compared to the first tire I googled's ~600g.
It's lighter because instead of compounds inside of the tire, there is air.
