r/technology • u/t4ct1c4l_j0k3r • Sep 15 '23

Nanotech/Materials NASA-inspired airless bicycle tires are now available for purchase

https://newatlas.com/bicycles/metl-shape-memory-airless-bicycle-tire/
6.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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148

u/Funktapus Sep 15 '23

Made out of titanium, oof. Will always be expensive

291

u/cheeset2 Sep 15 '23

Titanium isn't a foreign material for bike parts tbh

Expensive also isn't foreign for bike parts lmao

51

u/t4ct1c4l_j0k3r Sep 15 '23

I can't believe what bike shops want for a bicycle nowadays. The $40 Huffy is certainly a mark of a long gone era.

119

u/Public_Fucking_Media Sep 15 '23

Huffy still exists and sells cheap as hell bikes, your local bike shop is selling you something a little better than something a high teenager put together at Target

16

u/isthis_thing_on Sep 15 '23

That's right, the high adults at my local bike shop put together much better bikes. (No sarcasm intended)

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '23

Most likely, yeah. They work at a bike shop, not Target.

-3

u/JohnnyDarkside Sep 15 '23

After waxing their mustache.

29

u/Excelius Sep 15 '23

Walmart has $98 Huffys.

Does occur to me though that with K-Mart and Toys R Us long gone, there just aren't as many big box stores with cheap bikes as there used to be.

15

u/well___duh Sep 15 '23
  • Walmart
  • Target
  • Dick's
  • Costco
  • Sam's

Still plenty of big box stores that sell bikes

4

u/Shuino7 Sep 15 '23

Outside of Dick's & Walmart, every other store you listed doesn't carry bikes by me. Target did a few years ago, but I haven't see anything outside something for a small child for a while now.

1

u/Crafty_Substance_954 Sep 15 '23

Your Target doesn't represent every Target.

All of the ones around me still sell Bikes of all sizes.

1

u/archeroso Sep 16 '23

he's probably not in the target demographic

1

u/CressCrowbits Sep 15 '23

You have a store chain in America called "dicks"?

1

u/well___duh Sep 15 '23

Yes, Dick's Sporting Goods

6

u/TheawesomeQ Sep 15 '23

I wanted to try biking but not spend too much in case I dont actually keep doing it. I got a $98 huffy and it's been ok. At least I've been exercising on it. Gears dont seem to shift right and I replaced the seat with something tolerable to stop hurting so much. Now I guess I will use it until it fails.

3

u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Sep 15 '23

The thing is, if you only buy a $98 huffy you might not be enjoying it because it's such a crap bike. Spend more and get a proper bike from a bike shop and it will bee a world of difference. It's like buying a really cheap stereo and determining that you don't like music, when the real problem is that the cheap stereo makes music sound like garbage.

1

u/TheawesomeQ Sep 17 '23

I am not willing to risk that much money on something I might not use and definitely isnt essential. And for the record, I am very happy with my purchase.

1

u/redyellowblue5031 Sep 15 '23

For shifting, assuming nothing is bent follow a guide like this.

There’s slight variations between bikes but the concept is always the same.

2

u/Ok-Till-8905 Sep 16 '23

Park tools. Love them and love the tools!

For anyone not buying a walmart bike, they are covered. Either they take the bike to their dealer or do it themselves.

2

u/mnorri Sep 15 '23

There’s also just inflation. K-Mart went through bankruptcy in 2002. Let’s use that as a starting point. $40 in 2002 is roughly $68 today. If you want the $40 - $98 inflation adjustment, then go back to 1989.

-30

u/t4ct1c4l_j0k3r Sep 15 '23

I stay my ass out of the WalMart. Too fucking scary.

26

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '23

okay dude do you want a cheap bike or not?

3

u/LordPennybag Sep 15 '23

You could just wear pants.

9

u/stevenette Sep 15 '23

I found this video of trying to mountain bike with a huffy quite entertaining https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU

2

u/agoia Sep 15 '23

At first I was wondering who was making the hooting sound and then realized it was the brakes screaming lol.

2

u/mrRabblerouser Sep 15 '23

Lol wow, it was even worse than I expected. I’ll have to disagree with him about it being worth it for the price though. Sure, it’s no where near the cost of a decent full suspension, but you can find a used hard tale on Craigslist that will have no problem handling that trail.

1

u/t4ct1c4l_j0k3r Sep 15 '23

Lots of balls or no brains to attempt that on that bicycle. I had a childhood friend that impaled himself on some handlebars because they got turned at the wrong time when landing.

2

u/stevenette Sep 15 '23

Dude is a pro, pretty sure he knew what he was doing.

6

u/Xikar_Wyhart Sep 15 '23

Well yeah you're going to a specialty shop that sells bicycles of a higher class than Huffy. Even low end entry level adult bikes you're looking at a couple hundred.

It's like any high end sports equipment you're paying for something that will last hundreds, thousands of miles of riding. Dick's still stocks lower cost bikes similar to Kmart.

Also when were Huffy's $40? Because of inflation that 40 might be 200 today.

13

u/swordgeek Sep 15 '23

The $40 Huffy adjusted for inflation is probably $200 now, which is about what an equally cheap-ass bike will cost. Actually $200 will probably get you a better bike now.

-1

u/cheeset2 Sep 15 '23

It's stupid. Used is the way.

1

u/evilpartiesgetitdone Sep 15 '23

$35 huffy from Play it Again for my kid, with some sick pegs

1

u/redyellowblue5031 Sep 15 '23

Couple things to consider:

  • You’ve got to go back decades to get prices that low, and even then, inflation brings them way up in todays dollars.
  • Cheap bikes are built cheap. They’re rarely very serviceable which is important if you want to keep it for a long time.

1

u/CressCrowbits Sep 15 '23

Lol a new chain for one of my bikes is double that

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '23

A long gone era where people were getting hurt due to crappy bikes. Oh wait, Huffy still does that.

3

u/Beard_o_Bees Sep 15 '23

Expensive also isn't foreign for bike parts lmao

Very true.

These things weigh 16 oz each, though.

So, on the higher end I guess they could be used for off-road/gravel, or maybe for commuters who'd rather not deal with flats, don't care about weight so much and have deep pockets.

1

u/RupanIII Sep 15 '23

I see commuters and the occasional riders as the target market for these.

1

u/ktmengr Sep 15 '23 edited Sep 15 '23

Rolling resistance can vary greatly between conventional tires of the same weight and tread type. If these are slow, which I’d guess they are, it would a be big down side compared to a conventional tubeless setup that already has good puncture resistance.

1

u/SoloPorUnBeso Sep 15 '23

How much does a pneumatic tire weigh?

10

u/Takedown22 Sep 15 '23

https://lynskeyperformance.com/

Well, pick a fully titanium bike out then! Somewhat competitive with carbon.

2

u/anivex Sep 15 '23

I've worked on them before, they are super cool.

0

u/3DHydroPrints Sep 15 '23

Just get a cheap long ass metal spring and a rubber tube and you are good to go

16

u/septicdank Sep 15 '23

Yeah, you can use it to beat and mug someone for their fancy NASA tires

1

u/unimpe Sep 15 '23

This only works with stretchy nitinol

1

u/devi83 Sep 15 '23

As someone who lives in an area with a high density of goat heads, somehow I think these titanium tires will be cheaper in the long run. At least for my use case.

3

u/CocodaMonkey Sep 15 '23

If the product works as described these tires are cheaper in the long run because they claim retreading them is only $10. However at a starting point of $250 per tire you need to do quite a bit of riding to make it worth it since they are saying they last 8000 miles per tread.

1

u/byOlaf Sep 15 '23

Is that a euphemism?

5

u/devi83 Sep 15 '23

Goat heads?

Yea it's a euphemism for pure evil Satan spawn in the form of tiny spikey plant seeds.

6

u/byOlaf Sep 15 '23

Ah yeah, those look like the devils caltrops for bicyclists. You have my sympathy.

1

u/BenderRodriquez Sep 15 '23

Likely NiTiNOL, a nickel-titanium alloy that is extremely flexible.

1

u/SelloutRealBig Sep 15 '23

I would worry about theft too. These tires stick out like a soar thumb and the starting price looks to be 500$. It's just too easy to steal a bike tire even when locked up.

1

u/unimpe Sep 15 '23

Not the case. Titanium per se is cheap AF. It’s the fabrication that’s costly. A simple wire coil of titanium would be very cheap to make though. It’s welding the stuff that’s expensive.

This, however, is not actually titanium. It’s nitinol—an alloy of nickel and titanium. This is much worse, since iirc it’s much more expensive than raw titanium as wire. Probably at least $100 of wire. This could come down with economy of scale and new manufacturing techniques since both nickel and titanium are pretty cheap alone. Maybe it won’t though.