On-board tire inflator/deflator device

[EB]

Marginal gains comes to gravel worlds, dunno about the 450 gram penalty

https://velo.outsideonline.com/grave...th-new-system/

Obvious missed opportunity to call it the De-Heine-Nator.

[Jaybee]

Previous prototype used in 2023 Paris Roubaix by one or two of the mens Jumbo Visma team if I recall correctly.

Nearly a pound seems heavy, but Vos may be really sensitive to pressure with her CX background. And it's hard to argue with the result!


EDIT: the early use at PR is mentioned in the article, should have read first.

[AngryScientist]

Everything good in cycling has already been invented and perfected. We are squarely in the gimmick era.

Nothing wrong with gimmicks and newfangled gizmos; as long as we recognize where we’re at.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Everything good in cycling has already been invented and perfected. We are squarely in the gimmick era.

Nothing wrong with gimmicks and newfangled gizmos; as long as we recognize where we’re at.

Yup...not really since clipless pedals and lever mounted, indexed shifting, which brought a LOT of people into or back to cycling...

[Talrand]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Yup...not really since clipless pedals and lever mounted, indexed shifting, which brought a LOT of people into or back to cycling...

It's all been downhill since those new fangled safety bicycles premiered

[Jaybee]

The "everything that matters has already been done" mentality seems fairly reductive, no? While we of course allow for individual preferences and the fact that this forum in general seems to be a niche within a niche that's pretty happy with steel-framed downtube shifty bikes (which are awesome, don't get me wrong) it ignores that the vast majority of enthusiast cyclists are riding on better, safer, faster bikes than they were 15-20 years ago. It also ignores that technology, bikes or otherwise, is iterative. People build something, try it out, and it's either successful or it's not. If not, then refine and try again. This is one of the best parts of being human.

In the use case in question, it seems like Vos might have even been able to reinflate a flat while riding, something that wasn't possible before tubeless tires with sealant and wouldn't have been possible without this system and it got her (another) rainbow jersey. That sounds like a successful application of the technology to me.

[Likes2ridefar]

i thought the concept seemed pretty neat. Were I on the pointy end of a varied terrain course such as Vos just competed in using this, it would be beneficial to be able to inflate your tires based on terrain for efficiency gains and comfort/traction or to fix slow leaks with no downtime.

For my daily riding, Id not be begging for this product but it would be nice to have on my gravel bike on some rides where it could be 10 miles pavement, 20 miles smooth dirt, and 5 miles technical single track.

[Alistair]

I wonder how much she actually used the system (outside of fixing the flat)?

Or, I wonder what resistance testing has shown for pressure across terrain... does 45psi+ roll faster on pavement than the 35psi she might want on the gravel sectors? And is the speed difference enough to make up for the ~1lb penalty in rotating mass?

It's definitely a cool system. And I can see the use case for XCM/NUE/etc events being even stronger. 18-23psi is a reasonable range to want and that's a ~25% swing.

[EB]

I'm not sure I buy the argument for this system for XCO events. XCO racers run tire pressures as low as they can absolutely get away with throughout events - it's pretty common to see tires folding over in corners on slow-mo replays.

I'd assume that would apply to most XCM events too, unless perhaps they feature a lot of tarmac? The only marathon-style event I can think of that has a lot of tarmac at this point is Leadville, and that's a legacy event. I can't recall any tarmac in Cape Epic, which is the premier XCM event in the world.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by EB

I'm not sure I buy the argument for this system for XCO events. XCO racers run tire pressures as low as they can absolutely get away with throughout events - it's pretty common to see tires folding over in corners on slow-mo replays.

I'd assume that would apply to most XCM events too, unless perhaps they feature a lot of tarmac? The only marathon-style event I can think of that has a lot of tarmac at this point is Leadville, and that's a legacy event. I can't recall any tarmac in Cape Epic, which is the premier XCM event in the world.

Yeah, I didn't say XCO because I doubt they'd need it for the reason you mentioned.

XCM, NUE etc - even when they don't have much pavement, they still have a large variety of terrain due to the length. That said, auto-inflation vs tire inserts - the inserts are probably lighter and less prone to failure. So maybe not.

[EB]

Originally Posted by Alistair

Yeah, I didn't say XCO because I doubt they'd need it for the reason you mentioned.

XCM, NUE etc - even when they don't have much pavement, they still have a large variety of terrain due to the length. That said, auto-inflation vs tire inserts - the inserts are probably lighter and less prone to failure. So maybe not.

Yeah I mean, I know I'd choose the inserts every time, especially for an event like Cape Epic which is explicitly self-supported and where gear failures have decided entire stages.

[benb]

Aren't inserts going to result in high rolling resistance?

They should be marketing this to fat bikers.

If it runs long enough it would be pretty amazing for airing up/down between 8-10psi on pavement and gravel, 5-6psi on singletrack, and 2-4psi on really extreme surfaces.

I'm usually too lazy to deal with it as it takes a long time with the pump but making that really easy would be compelling for some, and 450 grams is not exactly the end of the world if the bike is 15kg+ already.

Put this on the new Surly Moonlander that comes with 26"x6.3" tires.

edit: Oh snap.. the price is going to keep anyone but elite/pro racers from going anywhere near this. 3800 Euros!

[prototoast]

The biggest thing I'd worry about for mountain bike racing is just that the terrain often varies much more quickly, and this gravaa system seems to adjust slowly.

In a gravel event where you might have 10 miles of pavement, 80 miles of gravel, 10 miles of pavement, that sounds great. In a mountain bike event, the transitions from the fire road to the rock garden to the loose switchback to the rooty climb etc. might all happen so quickly that by the time the pressure adjusts, it's too late.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by Talrand

It's all been downhill since those new fangled safety bicycles premiered

Ha! Pretty much this.

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Yup...not really since ______________,

I think it will vary widely what should go there.

For the record, I do think these inserts are pretty silly.

[rice rocket]

Originally Posted by marciero

For the record, I do think these inserts are pretty silly.

Almost nobody uses tubes or tubeless in motocross anymore, it's 100% "inserts" (aka bib mousses).

The cycling world tends to kowtow to the retrogrouches moreso than any other sport, so it'll probably take a few more decades for it to be "accepted".