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Variable tyre pressure wheelset is a mountain biking breakthrough
- mc32 6y agoI like the part where the pump is powered by the rotational forces of the wheel. Probably best if integrated with a trail or terrain map programmed with your preferences so you don’t have to tap anything while on the go except maybe to override the thing.
- frabbit 6y agoInteresting. White Crow had a similar idea 4 years ago. https://bikerumor.com/2016/05/03/optimal-traction-fly-white-crow-tire-pressure-adjusting-hubs/ https://bikerumor.com/2016/05/03/optimal-traction-fly-white-...
- underseacables 6y agoNow this is some great innovation. I’ve never felt comfortable with the electronic shifting, feels too much electronics for mountain biking, but this I can support.
- ehnto 6y agoFor me it was unnecessary electronics, mechanical shifters work perfectly well and don't require me to install an app and dick around with my phone. But modulating tire pressure quickly has no analogue.
- underseacables 6y agoModulating the tire pressure I can see as an absolute win for safety, which is why I also like disc brakes. Electronic shifting is just a step in the wrong direction. At what point is it no longer a bicycle, when it has an electric motor in the seat tube, always?
- bigmattystyles 6y agoI have wired eTap on my road bike and it's so GD smooth. Adjustments with the software are so easy too - I was never too mechanically inclined though. They have wireless electronic shifting on top end road bikes and I can't help but think that security probably isn't top notch. Can you imagine, the last sprint of the tour de France and shifting everyone into a low gear - you'd likely pop the chain off and cause real hazards and (rightly) face charges.
- CalChris 6y agoWell, there are tubeless tires (no pinch flats) and wider tires (lower tire pressures). 28C at 60 psi vs 21C at 90 psi.
- ehnto 6y agoYeah but you'd have to get out there with a pump to change pressure, I think that's the real benefit with this technology. I ride on the road to get to my trail head, and ride at about 20-25psi on 2.8" tubeless tires once on the trail. They're a real drag on the road at that pressure, so I have to stop and pump them up or just deal with the drag. If I could hit a switch and have them inflate themselves back up to 40-50psi for the trip home that would be so awesome. Even on the trail it would be good, downhill at low pressure then put some pressure back in for the climb. Or maybe a bit more pressure for the jump trail and so on.
- Toutouxc 6y agoI don't have a source for that, but I've always thought that low tire pressure doesn't really contribute that much compared to aerodynamic drag, even on the joyride home at 20 km/h on a heavier freeride rig.
- wtallis 6y agoI take a scout group on a week-long bike trek on the C&O Canal towpath most summers. That's a flat but unpaved trail, and most of the kids have hardtail mountain bikes because we also do trips for singletrack mountain biking. Over the course of the week, all the kids doing the trip for the first time get faster from day to day. When they start out and don't take my advice about tire pressure seriously, their sustainable cruising speed tends to be in the 8-9mph range. High tire pressure (and careful attention to ensure the brakes aren't rubbing) gets everyone up to at least 11-12mph depending on how hot the weather is. Drafting gets the group up to 14-15mph. So basically, in my experience on longer rides a low tire pressure will prevent you from getting up to the speed where aerodynamic drag is a big concern. And on hilly terrain you spend a lot more time either climbing at speeds far too slow for aerodynamics to matter, or on descents where you have no trouble at all overcoming drag to reach unsafe speeds.
- NoPicklez 6y agoGiven that it takes the rotational energy from the wheel moving to power the pump. What time of impact that does that have on the speed of the bike? Would this require riders to maintain a higher level of watts for the same speed?
- singlow 6y agoI assumed it only would only need to draw power for short periods and could disengage when not adjusting pressure.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoIf they can't generate enough interest, replace the PID control loop with a couple perceptrons and call it "Powered by Machine Learning" :)
- wkrsz 6y agoand call links in the chain "blocks"
- VistaBrokeMyPC 6y agoIntentionally oxidize the chain and you've got Rust as an integral part of your chain blocks!
- Arech 6y agoNah, it won't sell good enough. "Power by Artificial Intelligence" is a way to go, they always do that
- waiseristy 6y agoThis would be a huge hit installed on dirt-bikes
- RHSman2 6y agoMountain biking is just awesome with out this.
- sideshowb 6y agoYou are of course totally correct, but that awesomeness is due in no small part to previous generations of innovators creating the tech you take for granted now. And you can bet that at the time someone else would have been saying that mountain biking is just awesome without this. I can't see myself rushing out to get one but I respect the innovators for trying something new.
- RHSman2 6y agoYup, good for them but I do think that something that is fixable by a simple pump and that very few people practice (I know of know one who will change their pressures multiple times per ride) will catch on.
- Arech 6y agoCould be useful for downhillers but for all others the less the bike weights while maintaining strength - the better. In my experience bike weight is the single most important thing that matters the most no matter where are you going to ride - over a nice asphalt road or in a woods. It's ok to ride in the woods with overinflated tires compared to riding overweight bike... The latter is just exhausting.
- globular-toast 6y agoYeah. It's little wonder most people don't take cycling seriously when their experience is limited to a £100 ridiculously heavy piece of junk with under inflated tyres and non lubricated gears. I tell some people that my bikes cost upwards of £600 and they can't believe it. But if I tell them my car cost £5k second hand they're like "is that all?"
- Arech 6y agoExactly!
- dan1234 6y agoAnd £600 is still pretty much entry level for bike pricing!
- wtallis 6y agoAt least for mountain bikes, that's well out of the entry-level tier. Trek's MSRPs start in the $500-$600 US range for decent hardtail mountain bikes (aluminum frame, disc brakes) that are reliable and worth repairing when something breaks, unlike department store crap. $700 US is when they start giving you fancier features like hydraulic disc brakes and suspension lockout. Full-suspension bikes that are worth the trouble are definitely more expensive than that, but I don't think it's fair to say that hardtails are necessarily entry-level.
- johannesgoslar 6y agoA mediocre rim brake is much more useful than a shitty entry level disc brake. Even worse if it is a mechanical disc brake which should be forbidden.
- bambax 6y agoExciting news. A little hard to believe the rotation of the wheel would be enough to power a tire pump, but would be happy to be proved wrong!
- Toutouxc 6y agoI don't think it's "the rotation of the wheel", but rather the kinetic energy of the rider. The wheel just drives the pump.
- brianrs 6y agoHoly infinite redirect forward-on-back website Batman!
- pixelbreaker 6y agoSolving problems that don't exist so you can sell inventions to people with more money than sense. Yay.
- Jleagle 6y agoQuite niche but do exist.
- Puts 6y agoI've noticed that there's a similarity now with bikes and headphones where focus on technology actually has left consumers with higher prices and less choice by killing the middle segment. If you want a racer today it's probably going to have hydraulic disc brakes and carbon frame and electric gears, and an entry level bike will cost twice as much as an pro-bike 15 years ago. Besides there are only so many models a manufacturer can make and they also need to fill the electric bikes segment which reduces the middle range even more. I think we seen this exact same thing since apple killed of the headphone jack forcing people to Bluetooth headphones. Now you either buy super cheep headphones, or super expensive ones. But there's basically no middle range. And since headphone manufacturers not traditionally been doing software they don't have the skills in-house which makes them buy the technology from elsewhere and leaves the consumer with basically the exact same products but with different logos - which means even less actual choice.
- patchorang 6y agoI think this is an apt comparison, but for me it comes down to the complication of the products. I used to be able to just plug in my headphones and they worked. Now it's a constant struggle of bluetooth syncing, connection issues, forgetting to charge the battery. I have multiple pairs of wireless headphones sitting around the house, but I've gone back to $19 wired headphones because I was sick of the headache of dealing with wireless. I feel this is the same thing with bikes. A mountain bike requires nearly constant work/maintenance. I bet a well maintained bike costs 1/10th the value of the bike/year. And this is without any electronics. Maybe electronics will simply maintenance a bit, but when they inevitably break I'm hosed. I don't want electronic shifters. I want a simple and reliable bike. Maybe electronics will eventually be the solution to this, but right now they cause more headache than anything.
- sideshowb 6y agoHeadphones have plenty of mid range, they just lack bass ;)
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoCTIS has been a thing in military contexts (lots of transitions between terrain types and lots of available labor to perform maintenance) for a long time. It only makes sense that it eventually transitions into other contexts where it's beneficial and there's a lot of labor available to maintain the systems. This particular system sounds like they found a way to stick a rotary compressor (think automotive A/C compressor) and the requisite CTIS gear into the space of a bike hub which is a non-trivial accomplishment in mechanical trickery if they did manage to do so with adequate performance.
- hanniabu 6y agoSide question, why don't they make a hand brake that breaks both wheels at the same time? For example in mountain biking I was always told you want to brake both the front and back at the same time yet I've never seen a hand brake that you can attach both cables to.
- boris 6y agoYou apply different amount of breaking. Sometimes you would only use the rear break (for example, if you want to take a corner by locking and sliding your back wheel). To illustrate this point further: the common setup is to have the rear break on the right hand side of the handlebar. But some people ride it the other way around. If you are used to one way and then have to ride the bike that is set the other way (say, a borrowed bike), it completely messes up your riding.
- SyzygistSix 6y agoBecause that isn't how people use brakes. I'm pretty sure most people use the rear brakes to slow down and as control, whereas the front brakes are for stopping rather than slowing down. >I was always told you want to brake both the front and back at the same time This isn't true at all. And even when one does use both brakes, pressure on each is not the same.
- eythian 6y agoReally? I don't know if I'm representative, but I pretty much only use the front brakes. I only use the rear ones if I'm trying to avoid an accident because I'm not slowing fast enough on the front. I don't even know if it helps much, it's just a reflex.
- hansvm 6y agoIf I don't have to stop in a hurry I default to using the rear brakes -- I can't screw that up in a way that'll send me over the handlebars.
- timdaman 6y ago
- diggernet 6y agoSo basically, this is a tiny, motion-powered air compressor built into the hub? That's pretty clever. And not just limited to bikes. I'd love to have a set of car wheels with this built in. It'd be like the inflation/deflation ability of the Humvee but without the nasty challenge of connecting an air hose to a spinning wheel. Edit to add: Come to think of it, this could potentially be done as an add-on that bolts on using the lug nuts. I bet off-roaders would go crazy over it.