Attached is a simple diagram depicting a street eye's view of the tire treads. The reason for this design is traction at the angle of which the bike starts to 'slip' - so it will grip the terrain but only slow you down at angles greater than (say) 30deg sharp of 90 (you are at a 90 degree angle from the street at default). Wide turns and standard maneuvering will not slow you down (you'll have the regular low friction tire design under you), but during other maneuvers (including a fall) you'll have something to keep you in control and slow you down a bit. City riders should especially find this useful on the sudden changes of terrain - from asphalt to oily asphalt to a big slippery sheet of metal. Please correct me if this product has already been produced, but otherwise, I'll take the patent for it. How many of you think that most of your accidents (or almost accidents) have occurred at angles significantly smaller than 90degress?

tires deform where they touch the ground. the best tread is really none at all.

tread is for maintaining contact through debris and water, for best traction on clean dry road surfaces, slicks are best.

at least thats my race car logic.

Plenty of tyres out there that are slick down the centre with sipping on the sides.

Does nothing. Much better to have a smooth tyre all the way around.

Except a bicycle can't hydroplane, so no need for tread.

There's a good Sheldon Brown article about it somewhere.

Vittoria Rubino Pro:

(1) Grammar=friend
(2) Traction is the issue, not tread. Traction is determined by casing construction, rubber compound stickiness and the size of the contact patch.

Also, for mountain bikes (where the principle works a bit better):

tread on a road tire, is like a duck on a bicycle....siping makes sense on vehicle tires where you can exceed the magic hydroplane speed of 10.6 times the square root of the air pressure in PSI. At a 100 psi in you tire, you don't have to worry until 106 mph, when riding in a heavy rain. Now you know one reason Boeing 747 tires run such high pressure, the other is to increase the load carrying capability for a relatively small tire.

Tread on bicycle road tires is just for looks....

Treads create an angle - like miniature square wheels on a much bigger, hopefully round wheel. For example, when the ground is wet from rain, reduction in the friction between the tire and the street is the cause for a fall on a sharp turn. If I am wrong about the mechanics of a bicycle slipping, then please correct me.



MIN, if you want to correct my grammar, then correct my grammar - but first I recommend that you look at the elegance of your own writing style.

Looks good; I'll definitely check it out.

What is the application here? What are you trying to patent? There's every shade of tires already available for a wide gamut of bicycle styles. Is this road bike, hybrid, mountain?

Road bikes have clearance constrains with frames. Furthermore they don't require treads whatsoever. Treads on a road bike is a marketing gimmick.

Clearly treads on a mountain bike serve a purpose but that's not the issue at hand.

There's nothing patentable in this design.

There is also no advantage to it.

Should we also tell you this "innovation" is 100% useless as well? If the tire is going to slide out, it's going to slide out, miniature decorations on the "side of the tire" isn't going to do jack ****.

Go look at how pro race 3's are constructed, manufacture some tires then come back with a real idea instead of something half baked.

Heh; don't take yourselves too seriously - the patent part was a joke. I was merely inputing context to fuel a discussion on one of my observations: I've seen sharp angle turns with slick tires cause several accidents. I recovered before I fell last month, and I've just remembered not to go too fast on even moderately sharp angles. I was just inquiring as to why such techniques are labeled as "useless" and have "no advantage." Can any of you who have said so explain why? Thanks.

Mmmhmm.

Anyway, I've corned at 35mph at around 40 degrees (off of 90). It's called sticky rubber.

you're doing it wrong.

STREETS HAVE EYES!??!?!?!?

Sharp angle turns resulting in accidents aren't the fault of the tread being slick. Cornering traction, as someone else already stated, depends on contact patch area, rubber stickyness, sidewall construction, and pressure.

If you're unable to take a turn at a reasonable speed, you may have poor tires, but their shortcoming has nothing to do with the fact that they are slick. In fact, that may be the only thing they have going for them.

As for your question regarding why there is no advantage, and why it's useless to have a corner tread read on:

• Tread reduces the contact area of the tire. This reduces traction.
• Tread shifts under force. Your designed tread shifts under lateral load. This will cause a slight feel of tire squirm on hard corners. This is not desirable.
• Hydroplaning isn't an issue for bike speeds, so there's no need to try to overcome it.

If this were such a great idea, it would already exist on the top end racing tires. Instead, it already exists on low-end tires sold to people who don't know better.

You are 100 years too late for a patent!

those of us who live up north where they dump sand and salt on the streets during the winter months know (possibly all too well?) all about traction. tread or not, taking a turn at a hard bank at high speed over even a slightly sandy or salty road surface is going to cause some degree of tire slippage. the simple fact that your 180 pound body is balanced on a 20 pound bike with two 1" wide wheels that have, at best, a half inch of road contact at any given point is the crux of the problem here. i agree with most of the above posts - what the f are a bunch of little rubber bumps going to do to help me? think about drag racing as jkizzle mentioned. people have already figured all of this out, mang.

Can I patent the ability to kill people through the internet? That would be pretty useful.

...we have a winner.

you have to keep in mind that asphault is not very smooth. Slicks work so well because the texture needed to create friction is provided by the road surface. Your lines on the rubber are relatively insignificant compared to the profile of the road surface.