Originally Posted by vintagebicycle

They were sold as industrial tire rings or donuts. There was a tool to install and remove the tire with the donut in place. I lived in a town full of glass ware factories who used dozens of bikes to get around the plant on. We were always changing them out. They would never go flat but they would eat up tires there pretty fast. The tool just clamped over the bead and over the axle and with lots of soapy water you sort of just swung the tool down around the tire removing the tire and tube. In later years they came out out with one piece foam tires that went on the same way. We rarely had to remove those, most showed up melted on one spot or melted so bad from heat they fell off the rim.
There were two brands we saw for those tire donuts, one was made to size, the other came in a roll in various diameters with end 'plugs' that joined the ends. A chart on the box would tell you how long each piece needed to be. They were easier to remove because you just marked the tire or felt for the seam, and cut the tire there with a sharp knife and pulled out the solid tube. It sort of looked like foam filled garden hose to me in several different diameters. I test rode a few bikes with those back in the day and didn't care much for how they rode, but I suppose it was better than dealing with flats. Good tires and tubes pedaled much easier and rode so much better.