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SilentUnicorn

SilentUnicorn

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Bizarre looking. I suppose if a generation grew up with them they would look fine. I still have problems with huge wheels and tires with 1 inch sidewalls.

Wonder if this airless thing will take off.

Bruce
 
Interesting idea!
Takes some getting used to visually, though.
 
I hope they will develope a way to mount them on traditional rims, With sidewalls of course.
I bet, with the radically different look, the tuner guys would eat those up.
 
Seems to me that they'd need some sort of sidewall to cover the poly spokes with. Otherwise stuff would get caught in them and throw the balance off!
 
The NY Times article mentions a lot of noise from the spokes, so it does seem that a sidewall would help things.

I wonder how much of that thing you will have to replace when it comes time. If they just recap, the road gator population will boom, if they replace the whole wheel, it will get very expensive.
 
In other articles I have seen, they have mentioned that a band of rubber will stretch over the outside....which is close to what you have with a 35 aspect ratio tire anyway /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Holy cow thats weird. I admit I am intrigued but not sure I could get used to the idea of a tire without air. I agree with the comments that if you will have to replace the whole wheel everytime one wears out it could become a very expensive proposition to get new tires.
 
I dunno, looks like the first hard corner you hit would tear the thing to pieces! I doubt we'll see a true road-ready version of this in the near future.
 
No, it's actually much, much, much more rigid laterally than an ordinary tyre.
It should help the turn-in and the 'feel' throught the wheel massively.
 
I can picture the slats getting fouled up with snow and getting way out of balance...side-walls would be a must up here in the N.E.
 
I image there would be a very thin rubber sidewall in a production version, I think the prototypes run without one just to attract media attention.
 
This is not really new technology. An Australian company has been marketing something similar for a couple of years - but to the offroad drivers https://www.croctyres.com/. As an offroader, I thought they were pretty slick - no chance for a flat which can be a big issue in backcountry driving. For a street tire I think the big flaw would be the lack of adjustability that changing air pressure in a pneumatic tire allows.

Jackie Cooper
 
besides all of the innovation and history they have aquired, after the U.S. G.P. fiasco, can anyone be really symathetic with a company like Michelin? Good tires,great history, lousy sportsmanship!
 
What was lousy about their sportsmanship!? They reimbursed the spectators out of their own pockets, and are giving away 20,000 tickets to the next GP.
They had a saftey problem, you can't send 14 drivers to their deaths just because of 'sportsmanship'
 
[ QUOTE ]
besides all of the innovation and history they have aquired, after the U.S. G.P. fiasco, can anyone be really symathetic with a company like Michelin? Good tires,great history, lousy sportsmanship!

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you talking about. Do you really believe that the Michelin shod teams should have raced anyway? I think Michelin took the heat and did the right thing. The Teams, Michelin, and the drives tried to work things out, but Ferrari and the FIA wouldn't have it.
 
So Michelin had no idea of the speeds, cornering forces and temperatures that would be present?

This was a big screw up for them and something they should have been able to avoid. Refunding the money is nothing to be lauded as a grand gesture. Their lack of foresight, research, attentiveness...whatever you want to call it, caused the problem in the first place. Michelin may have permanently (or at least long term) damaged F1 in the U.S. where it is already far less popular than other racing. That is a shame and, as I said, something that should have never happened.

Does that make a company "bad"? Of course not, but making a decent product 99.99% of the time does not erase a monumental screw-up, expecially one this visible.
 
From reading and listening to several sources on F1 I gather that Michelin knew what speeds, conering forces and temps were in play last year and the year before. Indy was resurfaced last year which changed the dynamics. Bridgestones sister company Firestone had huge problems with tires for the INDY 500 and for a stockcar event at the brickyard.

Should Michelin been paying attention, yes. Should the FIA have noticed, yes. Should a copmpromise been made on race weekend YES. Is Michelin alone to blame - NO.
 
And I thought the wire wheels on British cars were a bitch to clean. These wheels would be a royal pain in the you know what to clean.
 
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