Puncture Proof Bicycle Tyres

An article regarding puncture proof bicycle tyres being developed from NASA’s Mars Rovers technology.

How would they know?

Unless the tradies on Mars have lost a load of sheet metal screws out the back of the Ute? :rofl:

P.S.
No chance they’ll run over cats heads in the local park either.

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The rovers recorded little green men riding push bikes.

I think you are getting mixed up with that old GMH Crewman ute towing a boat on Mars TV ad years ago.

And after beating NASA “to finding water on Mars”, years before Elon Musk launched his Starman on a Tesla on a deep space roket, GMH apparently failed to capitalise on it.

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Airless tyre development has been going for a long time.

The newer bit is the memory alloy which repeatedly return the ‘rims’ to their original shape after being flexed and distorted out of shape

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I remember back in the 1980s when I used to do a reasonable amount of riding, there were puncture proof inner tubes available at that time. Looking back they were a little like the pool noodle, but made of dense rubber/foam. I had a mate that bought a pair for his BMX bike and recall trying his bike (as it was supposed to be the next best thing to sliced bread), they were a little softer then I would usually have in my own pneumatic tubes…making riding somewhat more onerous…but off-road where the BMX bike was often ridden, the difference was not noticeable. It may have been a fad at the time, but puncture proof bike tyres aren’t something new.

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True, foam fills and other designs have been around for many decades. Applications include heavy machinery.

Foam/polymer is a compromise compared to air. Air in a tyre has elastic properties a resilient polymer cannot easily replicate. Polymers have finite lives due to fatigue and temperature. Air, or nitrogen as used for aircraft tyres have none of these disadvantages.

Just like curry powder in a tin, the experts will tell us, there is no comparison.

While NASA can afford the best low risk design of tyre for their needs, their space crews might need to adapt to curry in an a foil packet. :wink:

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If the price is right heaps of puncture proof tyres will be sold in country areas. My grandkids, most of them anyway, grew up in Tamworth and the bane of their lives was the cat head burrs. These nasty little buggers have a tetrahedral structure so one spike is always up. The dogs cop them too but quickly become adept and gnawing them out with their teeth if a friendly human isn’t nearby.
The fix used is to fill the tubes with green snot as they call it. I have no idea what the proper name is but it works.

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I live near Tamworth, and the fix is to run sealant in tubes, or tyres if running tubeless. There are billions of catheads on the ground in summer - autumn, and lesser numbers the rest of the year.

Catheads in flower

The almost luminous green stuff is called slime, but I prefer the white stuff sold for cars, tractors etc.

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