I'm more interested in the tread life on these. I'd imagine the tread life would be a lot shorter.

Anybody running these right now?

If you're thinking less of a tire, but a tube... there's peram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g22w0_NKbKk
Not sure how harsh it would be, but it sounds great to be on my commuter (that I've already blown the sidewall out of my studs). Pair it with your favorite tire and it's quite irresistible to me. I'd never use it on my road bike though.

Edit: Is this a new product? I remember my kid's bike from yeaaaaaaaaars ago had solid tires. I've had rubbish bikes as a kid with rubber or plastic tires. The plastic ones have zero grip on smooth surfaces

Whew,

I finally got my rear Tannus (700x23) tire installed on my rain bike. It is a pain to install, but once I got going it went fairly quickly.

I took it out for about a 5 mile ride (no speedo) tonight. Overall the tire seemed to perform well, and felt good. However, it seemed to have a little extra rolling resistance, but I can't be sure until I can check my speed in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll get the front mounted shortly.

I have one short Strava segment that I've hit between 24.3 and 24.7 MPH, a total of five times last year. So, hopefully it will give me an idea of the tire speed.

I've kind of given up trying to ride up my driveway standing, especially on my "rain bike". However, doing the climb seated, tonight, my rear wheel chirped quite a few times. Never a big spin, but several chirps. I'm blaming that on the fresh rubber, but it is a bit concerning, as I can usually do the climb without any spinning if seated.

I should be putting on 300 to 500 miles a month for the next few months, so I'll check back in a few times as time goes by.

I looked at the Peram Never Flat. As far as I can tell, one can't actually buy it yet. It appears to be essentially a foam tube that you install your own tire over the top of. I wonder if it is like installing your tire over a fully inflated tube. It may be tough to properly mount. Hopefully they have some ideas to get it in. Also, I wonder how susceptible it would be to tire and rim variation. I suppose some things will deform, then expand to fill space.

There are industrial tire foams that have been around for quite some time. I think they go in as a liquid. The tires I've seen seem heavy, but perhaps it isn't too bad for a skinny bike tire. I could imagine using a type of spray-foam, either inside or outside of an inner tube.

The guy (bikeman) actually tested out the product. He broke a tire lever trying to get it in. A few weeks after, they were able to fit it in just as quick as a regular tube. There's a strategy to it I guess.

EDIT: Forgot to post, but the solid tube weighed in about 900 grams heavier than a tubeless setup Works for the worst of the worst roads, probably not a great idea for regular road riding

Im dying to find out if these tires work. But not enough to buy them without hearing some reviews first. I am losing tires and tubes on my commute. I will have to either wait until its not dark out during my ride in to work so i will quit running over glass or do this .

Shredded and Punctured in The Bicycle Tire Killing Fields of SW Houston

I'm now riding on the Tannus tires on my winter commuter (not the Peram Never Flat).

The Tannus 700x23 were a pain to install, but I'm getting a bit better at it. I think my old rims were a bit on the narrow side. I probably should have special-ordered the narrower pins. I also left the rim tape in. My second tire, all the pins popped out on the off-side, and were a pain to push back down. For me, the installation pliers were a must.

The result is that the tire is a very tight fit. I'm not doing any super-high-speed corners. I have ridden old tubulars with old glue, and rolled one, long ago. But, I think this is squeezed in tight enough that it wouldn't roll even without the pins.

Since the pins seemed to come out, I do think I should be able to get the tire off if I ever need to. The worst thing would be to replace a nipple. That might be an advantage of a deep wall rim that would have space to replace nipples through the valve hole.

So far only a few miles. The ride may be a little harsh, but I don't think it is any different from a high pressure 700x23 or perhaps 25 tire. Speed tests to come.

Still lots of chirping of the tire when climbing the driveway, but so far less than 50 miles on the rear, and about 36 on the front.

I am thinking about getting a pair of Tannus tires for my favorite trailer, as I usually don't bring spares for it.

I haven't picked up much debris yet. I still avoid glass The worst damage imaginable might be a large transverse cut, could it break the tire in half? Not that such a cut wouldn't also cause extreme damage to a regular tire. We'll see.

Oh, one note on the Tannus tires. I used the narrowest with rather narrow rims.
But, one has to size the tires to the rims. There are charts available.

Thanks for the information. I would be most grateful if you post after a few more miles. I watched a you tube video for installation, doesnt look too bad. my bike is designed for 700x23-25 tires , so Im hopeful. Thanks for sticking your neck out and trying something new for the rest of us !

James

Another thing I am wondering about is serviceability(bent spoke,rim etc) on the side of the road, particularly in the morning, in the dark, 30 minutes before I clock in to my work.

"Perpetual Optimism is a force multiplier" - General Colin Powell

I trued both wheels before mounting the tires. If the nipple is ok, then one should be fine. If one looses the nipples, then one could be in for difficulties.

I mostly ride 32 or 36 spoke normal laced wheels, and they are generally ridable for a sort distance with a broken spoke. I did break 3 spokes (different times) on one wheel which I chose not to use.

According to Tannus, the way to non-destructively get the tires off is to cut each of the retaining pins. I had enough troubles getting the pins to stick on one of my rims, that I think I should be able to pry the tire off without cutting the pins, but I'm hoping to avoid that for quite some time.

However, this might be a reason to choose a moderately deep walled aluminum rim that it might be possible to service the nipples through the valve hole.

That is helpful, CliffordK. Still weighing my options. I have 20 days before DST with suitable light to SEE AND RIDE AROUND the glass that afflicts me in my commute, minus new tire buying delay. After that, its either be a Carmaggedonite for 40+ days or get the Tannus and never worry again, and maybe pile my tire tools in a heap and burn them!

I'm up to about 90 miles now. The center rib hasn't quite worn off yet.

I still seem to have more traction problems than I'd like in the driveway. Everything can be a bit wet around here.

However, I had a car pull in front of me in the grocery store parking lot today. I think I was going about 8 MPH, and the whole back end of the bike slid out from under me. Not enough to go down, but the rear wheel went sideways like I was on ice. In general I am a bit cautious on corners, but this is a bit worrisome for me. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it works out in the longrun.

The ride for the 23's is a bit harsh, but not unexpectedly so. I don't have the wider tires to test. And, as mentioned, one must somewhat match the tire width to the rim width, and these rims barely mounted the 23's, and won't take wide tires.

My feeling is that the tires are a bit slower than pneumatic tires. Today, it seemed as if I was battling a headwind both directions, so I don't have a good speed test yet.

CliffordK, what do you mean by driveway ? Can you describe the conditions you encounter there ? When your rear wheel slid, what were the conditions in that case ? I appreciate your answers.

James.

My driveway is short, paved, with about a 1/8 mile climb that peaks at about 16% slope (only a couple dozen yards), and gets a moderate dusting of fir needles (which I'm not knocking off quickly enough now that I stopped driving).

When wet, I loose traction.

I've found that I can use it as a qualitative judgement for tire traction.

I'm hoping to eventually get setup for a quantitative traction assessment, but I'm not quite there yet.

It is a tough course for a road tire. I can either climb the hill standing or sitting, and either on my Colnago Super, or my Litespeed (or other bikes).

The Colnago has a relatively short wheelbase for a late 1960's model bike, and the gearing only supports a standing hill climb. The Litespeed has a relatively long wheelbase, and I can climb either standing or seated. This actually makes a significant difference in weight distribution, and correspondingly traction. Unfortunately, wheels aren't interchangeable between the bikes. 126mm vs 135mm. The Litespeed is the one that got the Tannus tires.

Standing, one also tends to throw the weight forward, off of the rear wheel, and have more abrupt power bursts, and correspondingly less traction. Sitting one gets more weight on the rear (sometimes to the point of too little weight on the front, with 100% of the weight on the rear), and a bit more even power, but I run at fairly low cadence, so it is still a pretty harsh power cycle.

The fir needles and wet conditions both contribute to poor traction.

I only have a few data points with different tires.

Schwalbe Marathon Plus 25mm. This tire has a moderate, relatively fast wearing tread, and by far has the best traction. I mainly rode it on the Colnago, and could make it up the hill standing. It would break loose periodically, but I would retain about 50% traction as the tire would spin.

Origin8 Elimin8er, 25mm, balding. Lots of trouble with the standing hill climb (Colnago). It would spin like on ice for a complete half crank revolution. However, on the Litespeed, it would generally be ok for a seated hillclimb.

Panaracer Pasela, 25mm. Tire had light tread when new, and eventually wore pretty bald. Mainly ridden on the Litespeed. Bad for standing hill climb (on the Litespeed), but generally ok for seated hillclimb. Overall, I would put it comparable to the Elimin8er.

Cargo bike with 20x4 1/4 rear tire. Very long wheelbase. Minimal tread. That bike also has quite a few problems on the hill, especially if towing. So, just wide doesn't make it better. With a light rear load, weight distribution is somewhat off of the rear tire.

Tannus 23mm solid tire (only testable on the Litespeed). I'd put this by far at the bottom of my list for road tires. It is the only tire that I started noticing an audible (and felt loss of traction) squeak/chirp with seated climbing under moderately wet conditions. Usually with the moderate wet conditions, it does regain traction and I can continue. However, under severe wet conditions (currently raining, or just after a heavy rain storm), I spin when seated, and end up unable to continue, and walking the hill.

The store incident.
Flat grocery store parking lot. Wet conditions (after rain, but not raining at the time). I pulled on the lot on private drive, then turned left between rows of parked cars at about 8 MPH. STRAVA choked at that moment, so data is jumpy. A car cut across rows directly in front of me. I think I only hit the rear brake with moderate pressure. I may not have hit the front brake. This induced both a skid, and a sidways slide with the rear wheel of the bike.

So far, I haven't had any traction problems on any other hills, standing or seated.

Needless to say, I am a bit leery about high speed wet cornering, and haven't had any issues yet.

Thank you very much for the details. I just recently purchased a pair of UnderArmour running shoes that are made of (I think) a similar foam compound as the Tannus Tires. The logo,label , whatever said something like Lite Speed Foam Technology. Cant remember and cant reference since said label has worn off. They are light , very comfortable and have great traction - on dry concrete or multi surface, but on wet concrete they have horrible traction, like walking on ice. It may be that these are similar materials hence the similar wet concrete performance. On a side note, I purchased these shoes specifically for my commute because of the shape of the soles being conducive to pedaling or so i thought. Any time i dismount onto wet ground, my feet then slip on my pedals necessitating a non skid application to my pedals (until I get new shoes,at least) . I have never had this problem - either wet concrete or wet pedal performance- with any other conventional rubber soled shoe.

Correction : just did a little research. Underarmour uses a material sold as microG foam which has come up in some reviews as being slippery when wet under certain conditions. Im not saying the stuff in Tannus tires is the same , just wondering. Any thoughts ?

...and as i think about it, conventional tires with something like Peram seems more practical.

Maybe. I'm not sure they're on the market yet. However, unless they can make the tube very light, the Peram tube/tire combo may become very heavy as one must consider both the weight of the tire and tube.

I might consider it on tires that are damaged beyond use, but still have quite a bit of tread left. Assuming a re-usable tube, one would still need to replace the tire somewhere around the threads.

A simple bike scale would be sufficient. Load the bike with X amount of weight. Lock the rear brake. Attach said scale to wherever you're pulling the bike from, pull the bike, read the numbers. It'll peak first (static friction) they settle at a lower number (kinetic friction.) Assuming the scale is spring based and not digital. You may need someone to hold the bike up for you. A nice quantitative setup would be a trike run in reverse so it doesn't fall over. Put the testing tire on the front and pull it from the back. (Pull it backwards up the hill.) If the trike had a basket on the front all the better since you could easily load the front wheel.

Is this one size (maybe density is the right word?) tire for all weights of riders? I can't imagine how that would work. How can you design a tire that wouldn't bounce a 140 pound rider off the saddle while avoiding riding on the rim under a 250 pound rider?

If you watch the Param video, they have 3 different densities, (which they call "PSI").

I think the 23mm only comes in the hard. One could vary the bounce somewhat with different tire widths. So a 28mm or 32mm tire would have different support characteristics.

All good points. I watched the BikemanforU video demonstrating the Peram tube. Seemed to work OK, but I wonder how it seats, or if it seats well at all ? If the elasticity of the thing keeps it seated on the rim and tight within the tire, how long does that last ? The advantage of a pneumatic tube is that constant air pressure keeps it in contact with the tire and rim. Anyway as you said , they arent quite available in this hemisphere at least.

and now I think ive come to a conclusion on this for the time being. These foam tires, all rubber tires and even foam inserts and even even even foam in a tube wont work in a spoked wheel for this reason : the AIR in an inflated tire provides part of the structural make up of the wheel(ah ha moment) If that part of the support mechanism is absent , other parts of the wheel (rim and spokes fail) . Ah Ha ! Maybe the Tannus tires will work in a mag type wheel which would seem clumsy in something bigger than a 24" wheel imho.

It is not a hard plastic wheel.

I did true the wheels before mounting as I don't look forward to the idea of removing the tires to rework. Likewise, I chose not to use a wheel that had already broken a couple of spokes.

A few weeks now, and no significant problems with the wheels or spokes.

There are a number of different Tannus tires, with different sizes and pressure ratings. I believe the 700x23 only come with a high pressure rating, perhaps the equivalent of 100 or 110 psi. So, it shouldn't be much different than riding any pneumatic tire with 100+ PSI.

The biggest difference is that one no longer needs to avoid every little piece of trash along the road, so perhaps putting one's rims at a bit more risk.

Choose a softer MTB tire version if one wants a bit more cushion.

It is hard to tell if there is extra rolling resistance. Perhaps a little. But then, a commuting tire doesn't have to be perfect. Light tires, heavy tires, whatever.

My biggest concern seems to be the slippery when wet issue, and I am planning on using the tires as winter commuters.

There is a benefit of less road gear. Yesterday I went into town and stripped down my roadside gear to a single chain tool and Swiss Army knife... perhaps I don't even need that much. No tubes, no patch kit, no pump.