Seems like there are a lot of cool local Bay Area projects out on KickStarter. Last week I took at RevoLights, which are a set of very functional and brilliantly timed LEDs to effectively create a headlamp and tail lamp for bicycles. This week I came across PumpTire, a tire that promises to inflate itself and stay inflated simply by riding it. Sounds cool enough right? Here’s the video:
PumpTire's "Lumen"
So I can see a lot of problems with this system:
- Have to use their tires, and probably their tubes.
- Big heavy valve.
- Limited to tire pressures selection set by their valves (sometimes bigger people need more pressure, and smaller people less pressure).
- Expensive.
- Lumen is prone to being punctured, then you get to throw away your tire.
- Lumen may wear down very quickly due to the protruding nature of the “pump” area of the lumen.
- Handling may be affected due to the protruding area of the lumen.
With these faults, I’m not sure how viable the PumpTire is even for casual cyclists. If it were me instead, I’d explore the possibility of taking the lumen concept out of the tire and instead placing it into the rim strip for the wheel. You might get the same type of pumping action, with possibly even more volume for bigger tires, and routing to the valve would be even simpler. If possible this would increase the selection of tires and probably simplify the production of such a self inflatable system so that it fits most wheel widths.