That’s a bloody good idea. £20 is still way cheaper than a real 36" tyre. I was hoping to try it with a really cheap pair first though in case it’s complete poo, but that knotted bead idea sounds like it could have some potential. A decent xc coker tyre would be well worth the effort. My coker riding doesn’t justify any great expense yet, but as I ride where it’s nearly always wet and slimey a nice tread would at least take away some of the paranoia of crashing. And if it could be done for £20 and a couple of hours’ work it’s got to be worth a try.
I’m up for some experimentation, unless somebody has already tried it and knows it’s not good enough.
It’d maybe be worth getting some worn out MTB tyres from a classifieds somewhere to do a test. Some mountainbikers seem to change tyres at the drop of a hat so they’ll probably not be too bad, and folding tyres will cost next to nothing for someone to post. You’d probably get them for a couple of quid at the most. If you were super lucky you’d get some relatively new tyres that had a tear in one place making them unrideable but not worn.
I’m not sure who it was, I think it was a female rider and she had it done proffesionaly, Roger told me about it at Unicon, he might know.
I know Apo from Semcycle has a big string of tire and welds it together on rare occasion. Thats what first gave me the idea. I told Roland from Municycle.com about my idea for a pneumatic 42" once and he thought it was possible.
Here’s hoping
I’m really keen to try it now. If, like you say, I do it with used tyres first it shouldn’t cost much to see if it works. Now I just need to find somebody selling time on ebay so I can actually get round to doing it
Perhaps something like this would serve to provide extra traction? This idea is partially founded on the premise that mud will behave somewhat like snow. Obviously the ability to bite into ice is not particularly useful here (although maybe it would be of some benefit on some offroad surfaces…)
However, the extra links would perhaps be able to dig into the mud a bit, especially if the cross pieces are frequent enough. If wanted, some extra dongles could be strung into the chain to dig in more and provide extra grip. Or, you could even try rivetting bits of knobbly rubber to the chains…
The chains would need to be reasonably strong. Lots of chain would be needed. And I’d strongly consider replacing the spring clip suggested with a proper steel shackle, e.g. from a chandlery. It would add weight, but would have the advantage of being removable for road riding, allowing a quick conversion to XC mode.
As it’s coming up to winter, and I’m hoping that chain won’t be too expensive by the metre, I’ll consider building a coker snowchain just for kicks. Then I can experiment with offroad…
Snow chains are horrible things - they just destroy tyres unless you’re riding/driving purely on VERY soft ground. I wouldn’t even consider it for varied xc riding.
Some sort of “rubber snow chain” might work (like a sort of skeleton tyre with drawstrings instead of beads)… but I still like the “two folding tyres stuck together” approach.
why not just get an endomorph and run it at a rediculous ly high preasure you might be able to get up to around 33 or 34 inches (tire diametre) before it wont work
I also muni on my coker, and I love it. I’ve heard some say that having brakes on the coker can make for much better muni ing. I guess you can control your speed down hills, and still focus on keeping your lines tight. Makes sense, I guess.
An Endomorph wouldn’t fit on a Coker wheel, has outside diameter of less than 29", and has a number of undesirable characteristics for road riding. No amount of air pressure will make the diameter 33 inches.
On the plus side, if you put a whole lot of air pressure in an Endomorph, you might become the first person to ever destroy a unicycle wheel via tire explosion.
you could easily get something made up. there are many custom (tubular) tire makers out there.
i run Dugast on my cross bike. give them a call and they might be able to sow you up a nice knowby glue on tire
OK. I’ve never used them. My main interest is in not wiping out spectacularly again in really slick mud, but I don’t want to compromise the very pleasant characteristics of the tyre for other XC and road use…
Maybe a snow chain, with the parts that contact the tyre / ground protected with some kind of rubber? Hose could work in principle, but it probably would wear ridiculously quickly. Maybe just chopped up bits of tyre would work… I’m tempted to knock up something and see what works…
My aim was more to reduce some weight than for a fully knobbled effect (I only use it offroad occasionally, though it should now have lots of grip on turns (that’s where it was lacking on slippery stuff before), especially at lower pressure so the sides contact the ground more.
This amount of cutting (with a normal craft knife) has reduced weight of my TA tyre by 140 grams, without affecting the smooth surface for road use. It still rides smooth at high pressure. More aggressive cutting of the centre strips could knock it down another hundred grams or so I think.
I’ve not tried off-road yet, but on road it feels just as good as it used to. The knobbles don’t contact the road surface except on tight slow curves, and then it doesn’t need to be so smooth. Still, it doesn’t feel bumpy in the slightest.
I think it feels lighter to ride - though that might be the placebo talking, as it took many hours to work on! I’m still on a 36" tube, so I’ll get more improvement if I get a chance to go to 29" (I really can’t manage to even get the beast off the rim, so would need some more experienced help - might fish for some at BUC ).
