New Tech
 

This will probably never trickle down to touring, but apparently some in the pro peleton will be using it at Paris Roubaix. It looks pretty cool. Read tire pressure while riding and adjust it up or down with the press of a button. Bad section of broken concrete or Texas chipseal bump the pressure down without stopping. Some perfect asphalt bump the pressure up while riding. Lots of times while touring I thought about stopping and changing pressure to suit the surface, but seldom did. Whatever I started the day with was usually it sometimes despite the fact that it was a bad choice.
https://www.scopecycling.com/product/atmoz/

Holy tomato batman that's expensive!

But I can definitely see the use for that. It isn't as much lowering pressures that's the issue but pumping up again just takes a lot of time even if you carry a mini tower pump. I suppose one could be faster by carrying a refillable pressurized air bottle, but that'd still require getting off the bike, attaching, checking pressures and all that. I dislike the idea of CO2 because of the single use nature of it.

I suppose the weight of the system will help fill the gap between manufacturers' "We can make a lighter bike!" and the UCI's "The bike must weigh more than X" requirement.

Wonder whatever happened to the Pump-Hub™️ from 14 years ago?


https://www.adventurecycling.org/res...blog/pump-hub/

Apparently was NOT embraced by cycletourists as a must-have item.

decisions, decisions! tough to choose.........

do i buy the fill-the-tyres-on-the-fly system? (or just stop for a couple minutes to add some air)

do i buy the bluetoof-enabled water bottle that reminds me to pee? (or rely on my bladder sensor)

do i buy the quantum-hydraulic-cloudstorage-automatic-gearshift suite? (or switch gears when ped'lin gits harder)


or do i just tell them dang whippersnappers with their newfangled gadjets to git of'a muh lawn! :50:

Yeah my bikes were all not much over a grand and most were under. That was what $4k per wheel.

I wasn't clear on what they used, CO2 or compressed air, but I'd think they'd need really high pressure if air to be able to top up often enough given the number of cobbles sections at Paris Roubaix. Maybe something on the order of scuba tank pressure (2000 psi?), but that starts to sound dangerous. I can imagine a rider getting hit with schrapnel when one failed.

That pump hub gizmo I could imagine actually having some practical touring application. Not sure what it weighs or if it adds drag when not pumping, but... Imagine not ever needing to top off tires for a whole multi month tour. Imagine being able to ignore a slow leak until the end of the day or for the truly lazy forever. With some further development I could imagine having the added ability to change pressure on the fly like the Atmoz. I doubt either will catch on in any mass market (or even niche market for that matter).

Interesting, but I can only think of once when I was tempted to stop to change pressure. Did not stop, but dropped pressure the next morning before riding.

But, there have been lots of times when I started to have a slow leak and if it was slow enough I would roll the dice on pumping up the tire to see if I could make my destination. A built in pump or air supply would make that more practical. An example would be I was eastbound on Highway 41 in South Florida through Big Cyprus, got a slow leak in the rear tire, pulled out the staple that I got in the tire but the leak was still quite slow. I was a few miles away from a place to turn off the road instead of trying to replace the tube while on the highway shoulder, stopped and pumped up the tire a couple times to get to that turnoff for a better place to stop to change tubes.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9243046ebd.jpg