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Everyone who plays tennis knows that tennis balls don't retain their pressure for very long once outside their pressurized cannister, though. I can't tell if t
by jp57 4y ago
Everyone who plays tennis knows that tennis balls don't retain their pressure for very long once outside their pressurized cannister, though. I can't tell if this article is just ignoring that fact or if they are actually running on "flat" balls. (Balls that are too flat to play with still have some pressure and might work fine, I guess, though it seems like riding on them would just flatten them more.)
- hammock 4y agoMaybe they are using practice balls, which don't go flat
- asdff 4y agoMaybe that only matters for playing tennis. These look almost like the design of any other airless tire, only instead of a rubber tire with holes in it they are holding together the tennis balls to form this sort of shape. I think it only matters that they are able to hold their shape up, not that they remain springy or anything.
- acchow 4y ago> I can't tell if this article is just ignoring that fact or if they are actually running on "flat" balls You mean flat ball, right? They have 30 balls in a tire. If one goes flat, then they are running on 29/30 balls.
- ftxbro 4y agohe is saying they all systematically go 'flat' (easily squishable, not firm) after they are out of their pressurized canister for a while. he isn't saying that one will randomly go flat.
- aspyct 4y agoOh, I had no idea! How long does a tennis ball live, typically?
- jp57 4y agoNot that long. A day, maybe, before they start to feel pretty dead for regular recreational play. As the level of play goes up the tolerance for old balls goes down. In top-level pro matches they get out fresh balls several times in a match. You can buy storage canisters with pumps or other pressurizing devices that will keep the balls fresh longer. (And may even repressurize dead balls. I've never tried that but it seems possible.) Still even at my very low level of amateur play, in my ladder league it was expected that each player would bring a fresh, unopened can of balls.
- animal531 4y agoI'm thinking that you want them to go flat. When they're fresh off the factory floor we can think of them as perfect spheres. So while riding one ball touches the ground at its maximum radius, then it falls off a bit, then rises to the maximum radius of the next ball etc, so the rider keeps going up and down a bit. Once they become a bit flat the 4 sides will squash down into a cube type shape, also equalizing with its neighbors so that the overall shape becomes flat and the ride becomes a lot smoother.