this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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How do airless tyres change the pile of waste? They still wear out and I suspect become economically unviable and are disposed of.
It's not like we can't recycle "normal " tyres today, it's that we don't.
The reason is that there's no economic incentive to do so (yet), and airless tyres don't do anything to change that as far as I know.
They don't wear like traditional tires. At some point I'm sure planned obsolescence will creep into the design process, because capitalism. But as they stand, they're one set of tires for the lifecycle of a vehicle.
Airless tyres are generally less efficient with regards to rolling resistance though, right? How does the wasted energy compare to the reduction in replacement rate?
Actually, the manufacturers claim the opposite:
https://www.bridgestonetire.com/learn/tire-technology/airless-concept-tires/#
I see. Is price the current limiting factor, in that case?
The reason I'm asking is that if this is actually true and ready for deployment, it would be adopted by every single competing cyclist in the world - they are crazy about managing efficiency and removing the possibility of getting a flat would be even more valuable.
Hence there's something missing, however I don't know what.
Probably it's the missing possibility to tweak the stiffness or rigidity according to ones special demands. An air filled tire offers this possibly to adjust the driving behaviour by elevating or decreasing the pressure. These airless tires don't, which is good for a car driven on road, but isn't for bikes where the setup is usually adjusted to the demands of the driver.
I'm not entirely convinced of this being the case. Adjusting tyre pressure is something that is always looked at quite seriously by pro cycling teams, but it's not going to be something that would be impossible to overcome by just buying several more tyres to have the desired range of properties available for the conditions of any given race.
Regardless, this will be an interesting space to follow in the future.
Ah, OK. I was more thinking of mountain biking and related stuff. I didn't know that punctuation of tires still is a thing in (street) cycling.
However, I assume an airless tire for biking should have the same round cross section like an air filled bike tire, while the car tires both have a rectangular cross section. Thus the tires for biking need to be constructed differently. The one I've found is from Schwalbe and is basically a usual tire filled with a PU having a similar stiffness than a common tire with an air pressure of 3.5 bar. Currently, they don't have a system for racing yet.