8 ms·

On Pneumatic Tires

110 points by surprisetalk 3y ago

lqet 3y ago
Pneumatic tires are one of these things for which "reality has a surprising amount of detail" holds. Anyone who ever changed a standard tire on a bike can attest to that. There is so much going on: wires inside the tire for stability, cloth to withstand the air pressure (which the tube cannot), beads to interlock with the rim flanges to keep the tire in place (but only when pressurized), etc. I have witnessed bike tires where the bead/flange interlock wasn't perfect, and the inner tube was quickly swelling out between a small gap between rim and and bead until it burst with a bang that was louder than a gunshot. I once had a tire where the inner cloth was slightly damaged, and the tube was slowly creating a bulge in the tire over several days until it also burst. I found it amazing that all these counteracting forces still create something you can safely drive on, often for years, without problems.
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  The movie clip of the Taiwan tire fabrication facility is very nice! We take so much of technology for granted.
- tyingq 3y ago
  The amount of energy in an inflated tire is surprising... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VLhLcJJefo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VLhLcJJefo
  - gosub100 3y ago
    there's a whole subreddit for that (and other misadventures): /r/tiresaretheenemy
    - waterheater 3y ago
      Ever seen Rubber?
    - robocat 3y ago
      Apparently z-nails are inexpensive but excellent caltrops against cars and boy-racers.
  - andrewflnr 3y ago
    To be fair, truck tires are an entirely different level than most car tires. More air at much higher pressure. I did some research on what actually happens if you try to slash a tire. A car tire is only slightly risky, but a truck tire can flay your hand.
    - ponector 3y ago
      And on the next level are tires of mining trucks, like that caterpillar 797 which can carry 300+ metric tons of rocks.
    - panarky 3y ago
      Please tell us more about your research. What is the safest method to vandalize car tires?
      - tyingq 3y ago
        Unscrew the inner valve stem and it's an annoyance that doesn't create permanent damage.
        emodendroket 3y ago
        I suppose a more committed vandal could go on to do permanent damage after deflating the tires at reduced personal risk.
        andrewflnr 3y ago
        One of the more evil variations I've heard of involves pinning a bb or pebble between the cap and valve pin, creating a slow leak that's invisible until you think to take off the cap.
      - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
        maybe a small drill bit in the sidewall
      - 00N8 3y ago
        NASA has actually looked into this & found the ideal method for safely vandalizing tires https://www.thedrive.com/news/nasa-built-a-tire-assault-vehicle-from-an-rc-tank-to-explode-space-shuttle-tires https://www.thedrive.com/news/nasa-built-a-tire-assault-vehi... (it's an RC robot w/ a drill, for testing how space shuttle tires perform when damaged)
  - bumby 3y ago
    This is true for any compressible fluid. Work = -pressure * delta_volume. That amount of energy is why there are different standards for stress-testing something like a pipe, depending on the medium it's carrying. Occasionally you'll see an engineer or technician stress test a pipe carrying a compressible gas similar to one carrying a liquid. I can't remember the exact ASTM standards, but I think a compressed fluid should be tested to around 110% rated pressure and an incompressible fluid at 150%. If they use the wrong one on a compressible fluid, it's putting a lot more energy in the system. If it fails, it can be a bad day.
    - abfan1127 3y ago
      this is why people shouldn't pipe compressed air in PVC. PVC is rated for 300psi (iirc). However, it derates pretty quickly in cold temperature. If 150psi of air is pressurizing PVC pipe and it ruptures, its going to be a terrible day. Where if water pressurizes PVC pipe and it ruptures, its just a little messy.
- bradley13 3y ago
  Yup, pretty amazing. I had a bike that I rode a fair bit - same tires for 20 years. Back in the day, cars used to have flat tires pretty regularly - no longer - now some cars don't even come with the little donut wheels. It is genuinely amazing how reliable tires have become.
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    Removing the spare tire is not an advance.
    - compiler-guy 3y ago
      Not having a spare is definitely a problem when you need it. But a spare is needed so rarely today. And that is a major, major advance. One hundred years ago, a car with two spare tires were not that unusual--tires were sufficiently unreliable that you might not manage a trip without _two_ flats, but tires improved, and now the only long-overland back-country adventurers carry two.
      - Syonyk 3y ago
        A hundred years ago, spare tires were also carried in a somewhat more visible and easy to access location. I'm sure "symmetry" was a consideration in having two as well.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Spare tires under normal operation are dead weight which is the costliest possible engineering compromise to make on a vehicle, as it decreases every performance characteristic: acceleration, deceleration, cornering, fuel economy, etc. Their only reason for existing is to compensate for the historically poor observed reliability of tires. This has recently improved with TPMS mandates and better engineered tires.
      - jtbayly 3y ago
        AAA estimates 220 million flat tires annually in the US.[0] The existence of spare tires has nothing to do with poor observed reliability. It is because of lack of 100% reliability. It's because when people get a flat, they don't want to be stuck and have to be towed. They want to be able to do something about it and get back on the road. All my flats have happened not because I lacked TPMS sensors but because something poked right through. Low tire pressure only accounts for 15% of flats. [1] If you work for AAA, then sure, trying to convince people to get rid of their spares makes sense. But waiting around for AAA doesn't sound like a fun plan for me, especially when they won't be able to put a spare on for me, but will have to tow me somewhere. [0]: https://cluballiance.aaa.com/public-affairs/press-release https://cluballiance.aaa.com/public-affairs/press-release [1]: https://tiregrades.com/buying-guides/how-many-flat-tires-per-year-occur/#The_Importance_of_Spare_Tires https://tiregrades.com/buying-guides/how-many-flat-tires-per...
- tpm 3y ago
  Modern bike wheels and tires are also moving in an interesting direction: carbon rims are increasingly made 'hookless' (straight flange without the 'hook' which locks the tire bead) because it's easier to manufacture, lighter and more aerodynamic, while tires are tubeless, which is also lighter and less prone to punctures, but then the tires are harder to manufacture and more expensive. And lower pressures must be used so the tire does not pop off the hookless rim, so the rims and tires are also getting wider to hold more air, where once 17mm inner rim width was common for road bikes, we are now getting up to 25mm.
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    28mm is actually common. That's what I have on my brand-new Giant TCR (which is to say: an aggressive, go-fast road bike).
    - tpm 3y ago
      You are right 28mm is currently a common road tire width, but that's the total external tire width. What I mentioned rising from about 17 to (not yet common, but getting there) 25mm is the inner rim with - the narrowest measure between opposing rim flanges.
      - rhombocombus 3y ago
        As a recovering bike mechanic of 20 years (my retirement goal is to be able to afford doing that job again, it’s joyful but hard to make a living) the writing has been on the wall for several years about the many benefits of wider tires (and rims too I suppose). From fewer puncture flats, to greater comfort and traction, to actually lower rolling resistance, I dknt see a move back to narrower tires being something that ever happens and I couldn’t be happier about that fact! I’m too slow and old to reap any performance benefits, but my comfort and enjoyment of wider tires makes me ride my bike more. https://www.renehersecycles.com/bq-tire-test-results/ https://www.renehersecycles.com/bq-tire-test-results/
        tpm 3y ago
- slingnow 3y ago
  If you found a bike tire this amazing, I can't wait for you to discover _anything even slightly more complicated than an inflated tube inside a rubber/cloth shell_. This reads like someone just came back from outer space and was stunned by the complexity of all of the systems that got them there. I'm all for appreciating the little things, but we have to draw the line with overdramatization somewhere.
chrismorgan 3y ago
> [Dunlop] promptly filed a patent (it was later invalidated) I was curious and investigated: it was invalidated because of Thomson’s patent as prior art 42 years earlier.
markx2 3y ago
The scale of the time and money put into Formula 1 tyre development is amazing: "The design process took in more than 10,000 hours of indoor testing, more than 5,000 hours of simulation, and more than 70 prototypes developed virtually, to eventually create 30 different specifications that were tested by nearly all the teams over more than 20,000 kilometres." https://www.pirelli.com/tyres/en-ww/motorsport/f1/tyres https://www.pirelli.com/tyres/en-ww/motorsport/f1/tyres https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.the-beginners-guide-to-formula-1-tyres.61SvF0Kfg29UR2SPhakDqd.html https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.the-beginners-gui...
- xattt 3y ago
  10,000 hours is 416 days. They may be fudging the numbers by including simultaneous tire testing as sequential (look, we tested 4 tires for 2,500 hours = 10,000 hours!).
benj111 3y ago
>that as late as 1570, the number of four-wheeled carriages in Britain “could be counted on one hand,” This sounds at best misleading. 2 wheeled carts must have been more common, they're still transport, supplying the same need as a 4 wheeled cart. It isn't as if there were a hand full of wheeled vehicles total.
- bradley13 3y ago
  You're absolutely right. I think they are restricting their definition to the closest thing to today's cars: 4-wheeled, enclosed passenger carriages. Not quite fair, as two-wheeled carts, while less luxurious, certainly existed.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    In the 1500s wagon suspension technology wasn't very good. Humans would much prefer to walk if they could since riding would be very rough on the body. There wasn't really any disadvantage - humans can walk at least as far in a day as a horse (or more likely ox in 1500). Even rich people would walk, the horse would be for heavy things that you carry with you (ie a knight armor - a knight would then put the armor and and ride into battle). There are exceptions to the above where people did ride in wagons. However they were rare as for most people walking was good. Many of the exceptions where to show off: I'm rich enough to have a wagon so I'm going to ride in it when you are looking (and if I think nobody is I'm getting out to walk).
    - B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
      Anyone serious about comfort would use a litter ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle) )
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Even then it is more about showing off your wealth than comfort. You can afford several slaves just to carry you around. Probably more comfortable than walking (unlike a wagon), but not by much.
btbuildem 3y ago
> In the United States, vehicles with tires carry twice as much freight as vehicles without them. Tires have an outsized role in individual transportation: The vast majority of Americans commute on tires, outweighing all other modes by about fourteen to one. Another way to look at this is to see the pitiful state of the rail network on the continent: the most efficient way to move goods and people over land, severely underused. The article's author is very excited about tires, but it would be good to balance the stoke with the health and environmental impacts such mass usage of tires has. Rubber dust and microplastics polution in urban centers and along transport corridors contribute to a range of negative health impacts. Not to mention, where do discarded tires end up: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/01/worlds-biggest-tire-graveyard-in.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/01/worlds-biggest-tire-gr...
- paddy_m 3y ago
  By Ton-Miles the US leads the world in freight hauled. But for a variety of reasons, railroads are more interested in extracting profits from existing large customers than they are in increasing mode share. A couple of reasons for this, railroads are natural monopolies with industrial facilities needing to be connected to a single rail line. The railroad companies are much more interested in hauling large bulk from single sources that are time insensitive than a heterogeneous mix of freight that needs to be switched and is competitive on timing with trucks. This results in RR policies like precision scheduled rail (PSR), that tries to precisely utilize rail and crews to shuttle long trains across territory. PSR is only oriented to reduce RR costs. If a PSR train is late, every other train is delayed. PSR has also come alongside regularly running trains that are much longer than sidings, which makes it impossible for other trains to pass. Everyone responds to incentives, and there are a couple of regulatory changes that could fix this. 1. Some level of regulation that penalizes RRs for delayed trains. PSR results in lower operating costs but the externality of delays isn't properly paid for by the RRs. 2. Increased technology investment like signalling improvements, positive train control and automatic couplers. 3. Some level of regulation of freight interchange along with timing and price regulations. You can send freight from an RR in Kansas to Louisianna, but you would have to go through two or more controlling RRs that would rather go point to point on their own network. I don't know what this regulation would look like. 4. Land value tax for tracks. Railroads are disincentivized from improving tracks, particularly with electrification. LVT would be hard to pass generally, but it makes a lot of sense to tax railroads less for electric tracks. Electrified tracks allow faster acceleration and electric locomotives are much more reliable than diesel locomotives. The railroads in the US make immense profits (BNSF makes $6B in profits a year). There are severe regulatory capture problems that prevent these advancements. I have read the Switzerland in particular has excellent freight rail that is speedy and used for smaller loads. I don't know their operating techniques that allow this.
sudobash1 3y ago
> The tire’s meteoric rise might have surprised nineteenth-century observers of the wheel. To be somewhat pedantic, tires were in use for the nineteenth century and earlier. Tire generally refers to anything wrapped around a wheel making contact with the ground. Before pneumatic tires, there were iron tires. These were wrought iron rings placed around wooden wagon wheels. Obviously the article is talking about pneumatic tires here, but I thought that I'd note that there are other, prior types.
jasonjmcghee 3y ago
I read “On Pneumatic Tries” and was trying to imagine what “Pneumatic” could possibly mean in the context of a trie. Like dynamic node expansion? But then it was about tires.
hoyd 3y ago
I lived a couple of years in Stonehaven, a lovely small town south of Aberdeen, Scotland. This town was the birthing place of Robert Thomson, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre.
danans 3y ago
> It’s difficult for me to conceive of a world without pneumatic tires. It may not be difficult to conceive for much longer: https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/ https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/ Granted, they are still tires, but just not pneumatic.
- WheatMillington 3y ago
  I've seen pictures of similar designs and captions about how the tire is about to be obsolete since I started using the internet 30 years ago.
AlbertCory 3y ago
I don't see anything about SALB (South American leaf blight) which has still kept South America from large scale rubber production. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759241/ Kal Penn has an 8-part series on the world economy, one episode of which highlights what a disaster if would be if this disease ever spread to Southeast Asia. Alarmist? Maybe, I don't know. I know that there don't appear to be any direct flights from Rio to Bangkok, although I didn't look all that hard.
MichaelRo 3y ago
As a kid in vacation at my grandparents, I'd ride in one of these, a wagon pulled by cattle, with no rubber tires but same technology used 4000 years ago: https://cdn.adh.reperio.news/image-1/1a50f3f9-77af-4588-ae4c-3ea7101998b9/index.jpeg https://cdn.adh.reperio.news/image-1/1a50f3f9-77af-4588-ae4c... Well... sometimes, other times I'd just prefer a good ol' walk to the bone shaking.
thimkerbell 3y ago
How do I bookmark a site so HN will preferentially show me posts that link to it? Scope of Work is a find.
- Cockbrand 3y ago
  Are you looking for this? https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=scopeofwork.net https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=scopeofwork.net
  - thimkerbell 3y ago
    Yes, that gives me the site's past articles, but I want the future ones to come to me.
    - thimkerbell 3y ago
      Solution: subscribe at the site.

110 points by surprisetalk 3y ago

lqet 3y ago

Pneumatic tires are one of these things for which "reality has a surprising amount of detail" holds. Anyone who ever changed a standard tire on a bike can attest to that. There is so much going on: wires inside the tire for stability, cloth to withstand the air pressure (which the tube cannot), beads to interlock with the rim flanges to keep the tire in place (but only when pressurized), etc. I have witnessed bike tires where the bead/flange interlock wasn't perfect, and the inner tube was quickly swelling out between a small gap between rim and and bead until it burst with a bang that was louder than a gunshot. I once had a tire where the inner cloth was slightly damaged, and the tube was slowly creating a bulge in the tire over several days until it also burst. I found it amazing that all these counteracting forces still create something you can safely drive on, often for years, without problems.

repelsteeltje 3y ago
The movie clip of the Taiwan tire fabrication facility is very nice! We take so much of technology for granted.
tyingq 3y ago
The amount of energy in an inflated tire is surprising... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VLhLcJJefo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VLhLcJJefo
- gosub100 3y ago
  there's a whole subreddit for that (and other misadventures): /r/tiresaretheenemy
  - waterheater 3y ago
    Ever seen Rubber?
  - robocat 3y ago
    Apparently z-nails are inexpensive but excellent caltrops against cars and boy-racers.
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  To be fair, truck tires are an entirely different level than most car tires. More air at much higher pressure. I did some research on what actually happens if you try to slash a tire. A car tire is only slightly risky, but a truck tire can flay your hand.
  - ponector 3y ago
    And on the next level are tires of mining trucks, like that caterpillar 797 which can carry 300+ metric tons of rocks.
  - panarky 3y ago
    Please tell us more about your research. What is the safest method to vandalize car tires?
    - tyingq 3y ago
      Unscrew the inner valve stem and it's an annoyance that doesn't create permanent damage.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        I suppose a more committed vandal could go on to do permanent damage after deflating the tires at reduced personal risk.
      - andrewflnr 3y ago
        One of the more evil variations I've heard of involves pinning a bb or pebble between the cap and valve pin, creating a slow leak that's invisible until you think to take off the cap.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      maybe a small drill bit in the sidewall
    - 00N8 3y ago
      NASA has actually looked into this & found the ideal method for safely vandalizing tires https://www.thedrive.com/news/nasa-built-a-tire-assault-vehicle-from-an-rc-tank-to-explode-space-shuttle-tires https://www.thedrive.com/news/nasa-built-a-tire-assault-vehi... (it's an RC robot w/ a drill, for testing how space shuttle tires perform when damaged)
- bumby 3y ago
  This is true for any compressible fluid. Work = -pressure * delta_volume. That amount of energy is why there are different standards for stress-testing something like a pipe, depending on the medium it's carrying. Occasionally you'll see an engineer or technician stress test a pipe carrying a compressible gas similar to one carrying a liquid. I can't remember the exact ASTM standards, but I think a compressed fluid should be tested to around 110% rated pressure and an incompressible fluid at 150%. If they use the wrong one on a compressible fluid, it's putting a lot more energy in the system. If it fails, it can be a bad day.
  - abfan1127 3y ago
    this is why people shouldn't pipe compressed air in PVC. PVC is rated for 300psi (iirc). However, it derates pretty quickly in cold temperature. If 150psi of air is pressurizing PVC pipe and it ruptures, its going to be a terrible day. Where if water pressurizes PVC pipe and it ruptures, its just a little messy.
bradley13 3y ago
Yup, pretty amazing. I had a bike that I rode a fair bit - same tires for 20 years. Back in the day, cars used to have flat tires pretty regularly - no longer - now some cars don't even come with the little donut wheels. It is genuinely amazing how reliable tires have become.
- jtbayly 3y ago
  Removing the spare tire is not an advance.
  - compiler-guy 3y ago
    Not having a spare is definitely a problem when you need it. But a spare is needed so rarely today. And that is a major, major advance. One hundred years ago, a car with two spare tires were not that unusual--tires were sufficiently unreliable that you might not manage a trip without _two_ flats, but tires improved, and now the only long-overland back-country adventurers carry two.
    - Syonyk 3y ago
      A hundred years ago, spare tires were also carried in a somewhat more visible and easy to access location. I'm sure "symmetry" was a consideration in having two as well.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Spare tires under normal operation are dead weight which is the costliest possible engineering compromise to make on a vehicle, as it decreases every performance characteristic: acceleration, deceleration, cornering, fuel economy, etc. Their only reason for existing is to compensate for the historically poor observed reliability of tires. This has recently improved with TPMS mandates and better engineered tires.
    - jtbayly 3y ago
      AAA estimates 220 million flat tires annually in the US.[0] The existence of spare tires has nothing to do with poor observed reliability. It is because of lack of 100% reliability. It's because when people get a flat, they don't want to be stuck and have to be towed. They want to be able to do something about it and get back on the road. All my flats have happened not because I lacked TPMS sensors but because something poked right through. Low tire pressure only accounts for 15% of flats. [1] If you work for AAA, then sure, trying to convince people to get rid of their spares makes sense. But waiting around for AAA doesn't sound like a fun plan for me, especially when they won't be able to put a spare on for me, but will have to tow me somewhere. [0]: https://cluballiance.aaa.com/public-affairs/press-release https://cluballiance.aaa.com/public-affairs/press-release [1]: https://tiregrades.com/buying-guides/how-many-flat-tires-per-year-occur/#The_Importance_of_Spare_Tires https://tiregrades.com/buying-guides/how-many-flat-tires-per...
tpm 3y ago
Modern bike wheels and tires are also moving in an interesting direction: carbon rims are increasingly made 'hookless' (straight flange without the 'hook' which locks the tire bead) because it's easier to manufacture, lighter and more aerodynamic, while tires are tubeless, which is also lighter and less prone to punctures, but then the tires are harder to manufacture and more expensive. And lower pressures must be used so the tire does not pop off the hookless rim, so the rims and tires are also getting wider to hold more air, where once 17mm inner rim width was common for road bikes, we are now getting up to 25mm.
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  28mm is actually common. That's what I have on my brand-new Giant TCR (which is to say: an aggressive, go-fast road bike).
  - tpm 3y ago
    You are right 28mm is currently a common road tire width, but that's the total external tire width. What I mentioned rising from about 17 to (not yet common, but getting there) 25mm is the inner rim with - the narrowest measure between opposing rim flanges.
    - rhombocombus 3y ago
      As a recovering bike mechanic of 20 years (my retirement goal is to be able to afford doing that job again, it’s joyful but hard to make a living) the writing has been on the wall for several years about the many benefits of wider tires (and rims too I suppose). From fewer puncture flats, to greater comfort and traction, to actually lower rolling resistance, I dknt see a move back to narrower tires being something that ever happens and I couldn’t be happier about that fact! I’m too slow and old to reap any performance benefits, but my comfort and enjoyment of wider tires makes me ride my bike more. https://www.renehersecycles.com/bq-tire-test-results/ https://www.renehersecycles.com/bq-tire-test-results/
      - tpm 3y ago
slingnow 3y ago
If you found a bike tire this amazing, I can't wait for you to discover _anything even slightly more complicated than an inflated tube inside a rubber/cloth shell_. This reads like someone just came back from outer space and was stunned by the complexity of all of the systems that got them there. I'm all for appreciating the little things, but we have to draw the line with overdramatization somewhere.

chrismorgan 3y ago

> [Dunlop] promptly filed a patent (it was later invalidated) I was curious and investigated: it was invalidated because of Thomson’s patent as prior art 42 years earlier.

markx2 3y ago

The scale of the time and money put into Formula 1 tyre development is amazing: "The design process took in more than 10,000 hours of indoor testing, more than 5,000 hours of simulation, and more than 70 prototypes developed virtually, to eventually create 30 different specifications that were tested by nearly all the teams over more than 20,000 kilometres." https://www.pirelli.com/tyres/en-ww/motorsport/f1/tyres https://www.pirelli.com/tyres/en-ww/motorsport/f1/tyres https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.the-beginners-guide-to-formula-1-tyres.61SvF0Kfg29UR2SPhakDqd.html https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.the-beginners-gui...

xattt 3y ago
10,000 hours is 416 days. They may be fudging the numbers by including simultaneous tire testing as sequential (look, we tested 4 tires for 2,500 hours = 10,000 hours!).

benj111 3y ago

>that as late as 1570, the number of four-wheeled carriages in Britain “could be counted on one hand,” This sounds at best misleading. 2 wheeled carts must have been more common, they're still transport, supplying the same need as a 4 wheeled cart. It isn't as if there were a hand full of wheeled vehicles total.

bradley13 3y ago
You're absolutely right. I think they are restricting their definition to the closest thing to today's cars: 4-wheeled, enclosed passenger carriages. Not quite fair, as two-wheeled carts, while less luxurious, certainly existed.
- bluGill 3y ago
  In the 1500s wagon suspension technology wasn't very good. Humans would much prefer to walk if they could since riding would be very rough on the body. There wasn't really any disadvantage - humans can walk at least as far in a day as a horse (or more likely ox in 1500). Even rich people would walk, the horse would be for heavy things that you carry with you (ie a knight armor - a knight would then put the armor and and ride into battle). There are exceptions to the above where people did ride in wagons. However they were rare as for most people walking was good. Many of the exceptions where to show off: I'm rich enough to have a wagon so I'm going to ride in it when you are looking (and if I think nobody is I'm getting out to walk).
  - B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
    Anyone serious about comfort would use a litter ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle) )
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Even then it is more about showing off your wealth than comfort. You can afford several slaves just to carry you around. Probably more comfortable than walking (unlike a wagon), but not by much.

btbuildem 3y ago

> In the United States, vehicles with tires carry twice as much freight as vehicles without them. Tires have an outsized role in individual transportation: The vast majority of Americans commute on tires, outweighing all other modes by about fourteen to one. Another way to look at this is to see the pitiful state of the rail network on the continent: the most efficient way to move goods and people over land, severely underused. The article's author is very excited about tires, but it would be good to balance the stoke with the health and environmental impacts such mass usage of tires has. Rubber dust and microplastics polution in urban centers and along transport corridors contribute to a range of negative health impacts. Not to mention, where do discarded tires end up: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/01/worlds-biggest-tire-graveyard-in.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/01/worlds-biggest-tire-gr...

paddy_m 3y ago
By Ton-Miles the US leads the world in freight hauled. But for a variety of reasons, railroads are more interested in extracting profits from existing large customers than they are in increasing mode share. A couple of reasons for this, railroads are natural monopolies with industrial facilities needing to be connected to a single rail line. The railroad companies are much more interested in hauling large bulk from single sources that are time insensitive than a heterogeneous mix of freight that needs to be switched and is competitive on timing with trucks. This results in RR policies like precision scheduled rail (PSR), that tries to precisely utilize rail and crews to shuttle long trains across territory. PSR is only oriented to reduce RR costs. If a PSR train is late, every other train is delayed. PSR has also come alongside regularly running trains that are much longer than sidings, which makes it impossible for other trains to pass. Everyone responds to incentives, and there are a couple of regulatory changes that could fix this. 1. Some level of regulation that penalizes RRs for delayed trains. PSR results in lower operating costs but the externality of delays isn't properly paid for by the RRs. 2. Increased technology investment like signalling improvements, positive train control and automatic couplers. 3. Some level of regulation of freight interchange along with timing and price regulations. You can send freight from an RR in Kansas to Louisianna, but you would have to go through two or more controlling RRs that would rather go point to point on their own network. I don't know what this regulation would look like. 4. Land value tax for tracks. Railroads are disincentivized from improving tracks, particularly with electrification. LVT would be hard to pass generally, but it makes a lot of sense to tax railroads less for electric tracks. Electrified tracks allow faster acceleration and electric locomotives are much more reliable than diesel locomotives. The railroads in the US make immense profits (BNSF makes $6B in profits a year). There are severe regulatory capture problems that prevent these advancements. I have read the Switzerland in particular has excellent freight rail that is speedy and used for smaller loads. I don't know their operating techniques that allow this.

sudobash1 3y ago

> The tire’s meteoric rise might have surprised nineteenth-century observers of the wheel. To be somewhat pedantic, tires were in use for the nineteenth century and earlier. Tire generally refers to anything wrapped around a wheel making contact with the ground. Before pneumatic tires, there were iron tires. These were wrought iron rings placed around wooden wagon wheels. Obviously the article is talking about pneumatic tires here, but I thought that I'd note that there are other, prior types.

jasonjmcghee 3y ago

I read “On Pneumatic Tries” and was trying to imagine what “Pneumatic” could possibly mean in the context of a trie. Like dynamic node expansion? But then it was about tires.

hoyd 3y ago

I lived a couple of years in Stonehaven, a lovely small town south of Aberdeen, Scotland. This town was the birthing place of Robert Thomson, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre.

danans 3y ago

> It’s difficult for me to conceive of a world without pneumatic tires. It may not be difficult to conceive for much longer: https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/ https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/ Granted, they are still tires, but just not pneumatic.

WheatMillington 3y ago
I've seen pictures of similar designs and captions about how the tire is about to be obsolete since I started using the internet 30 years ago.

AlbertCory 3y ago

I don't see anything about SALB (South American leaf blight) which has still kept South America from large scale rubber production. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759241/ Kal Penn has an 8-part series on the world economy, one episode of which highlights what a disaster if would be if this disease ever spread to Southeast Asia. Alarmist? Maybe, I don't know. I know that there don't appear to be any direct flights from Rio to Bangkok, although I didn't look all that hard.

MichaelRo 3y ago

As a kid in vacation at my grandparents, I'd ride in one of these, a wagon pulled by cattle, with no rubber tires but same technology used 4000 years ago: https://cdn.adh.reperio.news/image-1/1a50f3f9-77af-4588-ae4c-3ea7101998b9/index.jpeg https://cdn.adh.reperio.news/image-1/1a50f3f9-77af-4588-ae4c... Well... sometimes, other times I'd just prefer a good ol' walk to the bone shaking.

thimkerbell 3y ago

How do I bookmark a site so HN will preferentially show me posts that link to it? Scope of Work is a find.

Cockbrand 3y ago
Are you looking for this? https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=scopeofwork.net https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=scopeofwork.net
- thimkerbell 3y ago
  Yes, that gives me the site's past articles, but I want the future ones to come to me.
  - thimkerbell 3y ago
    Solution: subscribe at the site.