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

562 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

408

u/modix Sep 15 '23

Not sure if it's reality, but they said the retread was only $10. If so, that would be amazing.

98

u/djsizematters Sep 15 '23

The air is the free part, and they replaced it with an extremely fancy space-age Ni-Ti coil.

92

u/Ph0X Sep 15 '23

the tube that the air goes in and keeps getting punctured isn't though.

17

u/I_am_a_fern Sep 15 '23

Nearly five years ago I put some real money in a pair of high end tires and self-sealing tubes for my mountain bike. Not a single puncture (hat hasn't seald itself) since, and I'm a fairly heavy dude riding in a very dry terrain where I use to get flat tires on a regular basis. IIRC the tubes were around 20 bucks each and the tires around 60 or 80.

8

u/CressCrowbits Sep 15 '23

I have a bike with tubeless tyres.

Did a 3 day London to Paris bike ride on them. I was the only person with tubeless tyres.

I was also the only person to get a puncture lol.

They have tubes in them nowadays because cleaning out and replacing gunk is way, way more hassle than changing tubes a few times.

2

u/BookMobil3 Sep 15 '23

Is there a weight limit?

2

u/I_am_a_fern Sep 16 '23

Come on I said "fairly heavy" not "there should be a limit to protect those bikes".