How much do they weigh in comparison to a heavy duty tube? Cool idea

 

That's a fascinating system and shows how thininking outside-the-box can yield some interesting concepts. I think the tire ***** should perform quite well for strict off road. I tend to categorize it somewhat like a Michelin Bib Mousse type system but maybe superiour, since you can fine tune the air pressure. It won't be as easy to change the air pressure as the Nuetech setup, but you can change it, and it seems very unlikely to have a wholesale failure. I'm curious how it would do for high speed desert stuff, but even there, you're not on the gas 100% of the time. There's always a rut, rocks, or other imperfections to deal with that require mere mortals to chop the throttle here and there. I can see where this system might not be ideal for longer sustained speeds...like pavement...but Nobrakes has clearly indicated that it will mainly be an off road application.

I'm still thinking the Nuetech setup is the best dual purpose candidate, but IMO more ride time is required. I'm going to Moab at the end of this month, and I'll be doing over 2 weeks of riding out there with chunks of pavement thrown in where trail loops and connections have to be made. If it survives that area and conditions over that much time and mileage, I'll declare success. For many months now with a good deal of rocky singletrack under the tires, it has been totally reliable. The Moab trip will do a better job of testing the real dual sport integrity.

 

Will do.

Went for a good ride today with lots of different terrain, loamy woods, a couple rock gardens, roots, logs, some pretty gnarly and technical trails. After that, hit a nearby MX track and did some jumps, corners, and high speed 6th gear stuff. I couldn't tell there wasn't a tube in there. It was great running low pressure without worry about pinching - traction and handling was superb.

They do seem very resilient to full compression to the point of pinching, even at low pressure due to the individual cells. As the tire hits a rock or something that might normally pinch, the pressure just goes up in that cell and it gets progressively harder to pinch, kind of like an air shock - normally plush but progressively more resistant to full compression, so this will surely help protect the rims as well. That's a nice side effect of individual cells as opposed to essentially 1 cell in a tube where when you pinch in one place, the pressure is distributed evenly throughout the whole tire and it doesn't go up very much to help resist that effect.

Riding wise, there was no drama or anything, everything worked as expected. Tires are still inflated and working. So far so good.

Redpillar, I didn't actually weigh them, but they are very light, a lot lighter than a heavy duty tube and especially an ultra heavy duty like I ran before these which probably weigh many pounds. I'd be surprised if these were more than a few ounces. I'll try and weigh the 5 or so that I did not put in and see what they come to, then multiply to figure out the total weight. They are so light because they do not appear to actually be rubber like a tube, but rather some kind of plastic, maybe kind of like little beach *****, but tougher, which is very light weight.

 

mmmm Good thread this.
Cheers Brian.

Certainly worth considering.

 

Great posting, Nobrakes! Hope they work well for you. I like the looks of the tire you put on, may have to try one of those. Good luck on your racing. Later!

 

Thanks NewParts!

Here's a little more information on the weight. The rear cells weigh 1.1 oz each and I have 24 in there which comes to 1.65 lbs. The Ultra Heavy Duty tube I removed weighs a whopping 4.33 lbs, so just switching to TireBalls shed 2.7 lbs.

The fronts weigh in at .60 oz each and there are 34 in my front, so that makes them weigh 1.28 lbs. The UHD tube that came out of my front tire weighed in at 3.34 lbs, so TireBalls come in at 2.06 lbs less.

So just switching to TireBalls shed almost 5 lbs of rotating mass off my bike. If you have just HD tubes the savings will be less of course, and if you have regular tubes, there may not be any weight savings. But I've always run UHD tubes to help to avoid stuff like pinch flats, so the 5 lbs reduction is a nice plus, too. Thanks for asking about that, Redpillar, I probably would not have checked the weights if you hadn't ask, and that wasn't something I had thought about as being an advantage.

I must admit that during my ride yesterday, I don't think I really noticed the weight difference, but now that I know, I'm sure I will notice and it will be awesome! lol

 

But NoBrakes...rotational mass has no effect on hp output right? roflmao

It does not in theory..... but reality, ya betcha ya.

 

Ha ha. If you hook up your towing strap up to a dozen sand bags and try to take off dragging them through your bottomless sugar sand behind you on the KLX, does that change your horse power output? Nope. Same thing, though, right, it's just not rotating. But I guess that's what you are saying, so we are in agreement.

 

Of all the tires I've tried, this one is still my favorite for all round use. Especially good in the eastern woods, rocks, roots, mud, etc. This is the same tire I had on last year at the Flat Rock gnarly mud race and it hooked up like magic. I liked it before then, but after that experience with it, it went up several more notches in my book. The only thing is that it's non DOT. The only place that has ever seemed to matter in my riding was at the NJ Pine Barrens. Have never been checked other than there, not even during the yearly state inspection. Go figure.

 

Thanks for the detailed report on those things B. I'm seriously thinking if getting some for the rear. I can change a front flat in no time so the front isn't as important to me.
I'm not racing so speed isn't an issue though. It's the aggrivation factor I'm considering.