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You Can't Buy Airless MTB Tires—So I Made Them!
(youtube.com)
Germans did it first, a century ago...
Hot damn, that’s a crafty use of springs
If it doesn't last as long, wouldn't it produce a higher volume of plastic pollution. Even if it does break down quicker, it might increase your impact. Also, I think your bike tire wear is truly an insignificant contributor to pollution. Your effort would be much better spent advocating for bike lanes, giving an old bike to a friend so they can drive less, etc. If you ride instead of Uber 1 time, you're probably offsetting a month of bike tire wear.
Not to mention using a bike instead of a car which is probably at least an order of magnitude reduction in solid pollution, if not more.
Really cool! One thing I sometimes concern my self about is the minimal (comparatively) pollution my bicycle tires make. I would LOVE to print out this design on bio-degradable filament. It very likely wouldn't last as long, but that's fine if I'm even further reducing my impact. *Also I almost exclusively ride in urban environments.
Note: most biodegradable filaments are only degradable in industrial-level compost facilities; however, they do break down a lot quicker than conventional plastics in normal conditions.
**Can anyone find the .stl? :O
Biodegradable filaments are usually also rigid. So instead you could just take off your tire and ride on the rim to get similar results.
He should put them on that absolutely trash ebike too he pulled apart
It's a really weird claim that they don't exist when the first search result for "airless bike" is an amazon link with a large selection of airless mountain bike tires. Is he using a really restrictive definition of mountain bike tires? I looked into this when I moved somewhere I was getting constant tube punctures, but the general consensus seemed to be that they all just suck for various reasons. I ended up going with tire guards plus bike tubes with sealant, this combo seems to work very well, only need to replace the tubes once or twice a year despite multiple thorns getting stuck in the tires every day that would otherwise cause a flat.
If it's thorns that are doing it, have you tried tubeless? That sealant stuff will seal a pretty sizeable thorn hole pretty much almost instantly. I've had rides where you look at it after, and you can see all these little pinholes of sealant poking through, but you haven't had a noticeable loss of air. I've only ever had one flat on tubeless so far, in the decade or so that I've been running it, and it was because I was being arrogant and running my tires at basically 10psi. Got it caught between two sharp rocks that basically did a snakebite on the sidewall. Still got it plugged and blown back up on the trail in under 5 minutes (which is my opinion the best part of tubeless). The cons are your tires go flat if it sits for a period of time, and you have to top them up fairly regularly, but it's worth it IMO.
Haven't tried tubeless but definitely can attest that sealant works very well with tubes also
I really would like to know how many kilometers those tires will last.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Bicycles
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