Complete layman here, every 6 months or so for the past decade I see an article claiming someone got air-less tires working. What are the chances this would be it ?
What the hell, I've been looking for something like this for the past few months. Only ones I could find were Tannus (too soft) and Schwalbe (garbage).
Don't care about weight, noise, ride quality, just need unbreakable tires because riding through neighborhoods where people break glass bottles on the bike paths will make me smash someone's head with one someday.
Panaracer T-Serv Messenger bike tires are what you're looking for. They're lighter than the gatorskins and work incredibly well. I rode one pair until the tread was gone in SF (several years) and never got one flat tire.
That's a nice option to have, thanks for sharing. I used Gatorskins (Hardshell and the normal version) until the tread was gone the past couple of years. This year I fitted some Continental Grand Prix 4-Season that are holding pretty well against punctures.
Might give these Panaracers a try when the tread of the GP are gone (or if I start getting punctures but so far they are as impervious as the Gatorskins for me).
Continental Gatorskin brand tires have worked really well in my experience, easily many thousands of miles. They usually age out (2 years or so) before I've had any flat. I have had snakebite flats though which is usually just due to low air pressure or bad tubes. Tubes can just suck. I've combined them with puncture resistant tubes (thicker tubes) and never had a flat, using 700x25 or 700x28 versions.
They are really solid, last forever and are quite light for a non racing tire. They also have decently low rolling resistance when inflated high.
However, in my experience they are really sketchy in wet conditions. I've wiped out or almost did multiple times on gatorskins. Deflating them in wet conditions works but the rolling resistance is then quite high.
I've found that the Schwalbe Marathons in wider sizes (I think I got 38s?) are much more confidence inspiring and comfortable, and makes up for the fact that I have to change a flat twice a year instead of once a year.
Oh yeah, I've had some extremely solid wipeouts in the wet on mine, but then again I usually just attribute that more to me being a hooligan on the bike more than the tires :P
I rode across the country on a pair (two pairs actually, first set wore out) of marathon pluses. I got 1 flat from a metal staple, which is pretty good for 4200 miles :D
The non-Plus Marathons are quite nice, but less puncture-proof.
You can't really win, the stiffer the tire the better it is at protecting the tube but the rolling resistance is higher and the tire flexes less which makes it less grippy.
Weirdly, it's actual black magic - the regular Marathons have the lowest rolling resistance of any touring tyre[0](lower than Schwalbe's own Marathon Racer lol), despite being very good at puncture proofing and not being completely slick. No idea how Schwalbe has actually done it.
I have never read these two words in the same sentence. I've put thousands upon thousands of miles on my Schwalbe Marathons with nary a flat. Granted, nothing is 100%, but I find Schwalbe's a solid urban/touring choice.
Tannus too soft? I've had mine for a year and a summer, and really couldn't be happier. If anything, I find them a tad on the hard side.
This is an ordinary, oldfashioned pushbike with medium-width tyres.
The only springs on most tractors - ancient or modern - are between the seat and the frame to which it is affixed. IOW the vast majority of the tractor's total weight is unsprung.
Its easier to let the water out of a tractor tire than to take a 500lb wheel plate off...when changing a tire.
...added weight is for better traction. Almost all 2WD tractors will have their back tires filled with a water/radiator fluid mixture (ice doesn't work well if you want to keep the tire on the rim).
Water's basically incompressible, if some Michael Crichton book I read like 25 years ago is to be believed.
My guess would be one or more of: the above; greater heat capacity; or, something to do with surface area vs. volume meaning that at a large enough size water in a tire is far lower-pressure and easier to contain than air at a high enough pressure to keep it inflated, and/or, relatedly, something to do with heat dissipation from compressing gasses being really hard to deal with once you hit a certain surface-to-volume ratio.
[EDIT] LOL, guess all these were wrong and it's just for the extra weight.
It's a lot better than the calcium chloride that they used to use, when a telehandler blew out a tire and drained hundreds of pounds of saltwater into my parents' lawn a few years ago it did a lot of damage.
Beet juice is soooooooo much better for the environment than the salts it is replacing. Unfortunately it is slightly more expensive so we get to continue poisoning our waterways with salts.
The only time they move fast enough to worry about unspung weight is when they are on a trailer.
That isn't strictly true, but in general such equipment spends most of it time moving very slowly it it moves at all. Transports speeds do become a problem, but that is only done for a short time (or you have it on a trailer so you can go faster) so nobody worries about the issue.
I love to disagree because I'm a betting man. Want to wager some money on a bet? Pick a timeline (5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years) and maybe we can make this fun!
lol. No bet. Not because I doubt my position (I see an aerogel-inspired material working out). Rather because the 50 year timeline that I would feel safe betting on is basically my end-of-life. I'm not really interested in paying out a longbets.org payment on my deathbed.
The Earth's atmosphere is about 80% nitrogen and a little less than 20% oxygen, with some carbon dioxide, argon, variable amounts of water vapor, and some pollution.
My guess is parent comment misspoke and meant pure nitrogen -- which does indeed help with tire pressure. The ideal gas law still applies, so there will be seasonal changes in pressure, but there will be much less exfiltration (via 'permeation', specifically) of gas through the material (N2 has a larger 'kinetic diameter' than O2; O2 will permeate 3-4x faster through rubber than N2).
So if regular air is 80% nitrogen already, won't the tires move towards 100% nitrogen with each top off since the tires will be retaining the nitrogen more than the oxygen? Sounds like a marketing trick unless they're filling newly mounted tires with 100% nitrogen.
That's a pretty clever thought in general, but yours is only a first approximation.
First, permeation decreases with pressure, at different rates for the two gases. If you consider only this fact you will find that the partial pressures of O2 and N2 asymptotically approach homeostasis, rather than simply all the O2 leaving and all the N2 remaining.
Second, permeability changes with temperature, so the ratio of O2 and N2 exfiltration rate changes seasonally, as each gas has a different permeability-vs-temperature curve. Third, the ideal gas law causes pressure changes seasonally which will also decrease exfiltration in winter, and once again, each gas will have its own permeability-vs-pressure curve, so these become very confounding factors.
All in all, the reality of the situation is that filling up your tires with atmospheric air will probably settle on partial pressure ratios of, say, 85/15 rather than 100/0. The deflation that you get comes from only about 5% of the O2 leaving the tire; and of course you get another big deflation when the weather first turns cold.
I don't know the exact numbers because I've frankly never thought to look into this before. So like I said, it was a clever thought! But it needed to be taken a few steps further.
Maybe just nitrogen? Costco inflates tyres with nitrogen. The pair of tyres on my vehicle inflated with nitrogen don’t seem to lose pressure, the other two need topping up occasionally.
That at least helps with some of the logic. However, doesn't directly answer what "nitro oxygen" is. Guessing some sort of slang. It's definitely not a scientific phrase. Nitrogen oxide or something maybe too much for grease monkies so they call it nitro oxygen??? just guessing.
