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Wonder if you could tune a tire sidewall to be less linear and more progressive….
Ok forgive the quality I drew this on on canva.com with a touchpad, after work I can CAD it up but hear me out- a dampen(ing?) reservoir attached to the rim to control tire rebound. You pump your tires up to like 40 PSI, but then this reservoir has a piston that moves up and down that allows your tires to have a real, effective larger air volume but when you compress the piston to get more air volume the piston returns based on a rebound shim stack
EDIT this could live in the hub and use a hollow spoke and somehow double as a push button air refiller (this already exists)
With the addition of sealant it should be plenty damp in there.
Unfortunately some ignoramus will end up trying to move your invention to the frame, adding more weight and complexity to the elegant MTB
I was thinking about something like #3 when I saw the huck to flat videos, though at the time not with activated carbon, just with a standard valve/bladder that could be in a canister on the hub and a hose to the rim (opposite to the valve, and everything well balanced), but I have absolutely no idea of the air volume required to move, and that's some additional undamped mass. The canister could also be on the frame (or inside the frame), but that would require a hub with a circular valve to let some air move from the tire to the frame...
So your idea looks much simpler if that could work^^
Edit : I started typing before the 2-3 previous posts and only sent it later^^
Schwalbe was quietly saying in most article that rolling resistance is significantly worse which will be a automatic no for XC/gravel/road. Thanks to the independant testing of BicycleRollingResistance people are often now basing their tire purchase on the road because they are 1-2 watts faster at 32kph per tire (decent road at 10w and good tires are below 8w). We won't know for sure until we get 3rd party rolling resistance data on those Schwalbe radial tire and it's not really the type of tires that BCR test usually.
What article did you see the mention of poor rolling resistance? I mean, I did initially think that as I read "30% larger contact patch on ground". More sticky rubber contacting the ground is more friction. But a lot of rolling resistance is from casing deformation (less of a component of MTB vs. road tire though because of the tall treads). This radial casing should be more 'supple' which would lower rolling resistance, but if it's putting more of a contact patch on the ground vs. a normal tire, then it will be slower rolling.
This ties into my other point which is that it looks like Schwalbe is leaning heavy into ebikes here with these radial tires (if they roll slower) and that new set of "Shredda" tires that are basically mud spikes with stiffer knobs. In the Loam Wolf video about these Shredda tires the Schwalbe rep says that tire is for ebikes and to "push the limits of what's possible on a climb". I'm thinking moto tires: tall ass lugs that will dig into and pillage soils with the help of an extra 400w from the ebike on the climb. Brappp.
I was wrong, I read again the vital, pinkbike and bikerumor and only the bikerumor article mention worse rolling resistance: '' More tire flex does mean a bit of increased rolling resistance, so you won’t see Schwalbe Radial tires blowing up the XC, gravel, or road scene right away.''
Certainly makes sense. The layout of the radial tire resembles lacrosse stick mesh and high-tech sail cloth, both are applications where preferential flex along one axis is advantageous.
What this really reminds me of is X-pac sail cloth which has been readily adapted for making bike frame bags (Revelate, rogue panda….)
Cool to see, makes me wonder if we’ll we might get carbon parts (bars or frames) with bonded exoskeletons of directional mesh to tune flex along an axis. Probably not but I can dream
enduro-mtb also mentions it:
"However, the new casing’s increased deformation is expected to result in slightly higher rolling resistance. According to Schwalbe, the Albert with radial casing should offer the same rolling resistance as a Magic Mary in the old casing, which is mainly due to the tread pattern."
And again in their summary,
"an excellent all-rounder provided you can leave with slightly more rolling resistance."
Does anyone know what the new Pro designation in the tire means?
sounds to me like a great chasing for a front tyre, slower rolling means nothing up front compared to the back, more grip and compliance are definetely what you want
One thing about rolling resistance off road, casing being able to flex and absorb a bump (rock/root/etc) can lower effective rolling resistance since it is not deflecting. Deflecting off of a bump takes energy away from moving forward, increasing effective rolling resistance.
Mostly I agree with Nico in the post above, looks like a good front tire. I currently swap between a Magic Mary and a Tacky Chan depending on the seasons. MM is great in fall/ winter to punch through the leaves and pine needles on the trails, but as trails dry out in spring/summer I find the side knobs folding on some of the harder packed sections of trail and switch to a TC. This looks like it could replace both and be one front tire year round here in GA.
Idk man as one of the many people who’s just switched from an Assegai up front to a Kryptotal front does make more of a difference than you think. I even went back and looked at my time/calories burned on a 1mi, gradual, 10-ish mph, road climb on my normal route and both were lower. Wasn’t Pierron running a cut Dirty Dan in the front and an uncut in the rear at Les Gets?
How much lower?
Making a tire is a helluva balancing act. If you want the utmost traction, drag is gonna be more pronounced and vice versa if you want the least amount of rolling resistance. Traction and rolling resistance are intrinsically intertwined. I've noticed it on road tires where super grippy tires that provide corner lean so deep you knock a pedal on the pave in flat corners just don't have the same zip up to speed as a harder compound. For my local environs it gets even more fussy as the temps drop. That same super grippy tire turns into a slippery eel below freezing. Same happens to a harder tire, but IME just not as starkly.
It's been quite well known most soft tyres become rock hard under ~10°C, Conti's Black Chilli compound was supposedly very good at not doing this though.
Schwalbe released the angle numbers on their radial construction, right? Would there be any validity to measuring the angles seen in the crosshatching on the sidewalls of ridden tires from other brands and then comparing those numbers against Schwable's numbers to see if they're really that different? If that makes sense in theory, could you get an accurate enough measurement through the sidewall to make it meaningful? Obviously you could expose the casing of a worn out tire if you really wanted to take it that far . . .
I realize the tpi and other things come into play and the angles don't tell the whole story. But that's the main thing that's claimed to be novel and a differentiator, so I'd be curious on the numbers.
Enough to convince me there’s something to the famous DHR on the front setup 😉
They aren’t revealing the angle as it’s proprietary (mentioned in review video I watched yesterday). But I’m sure competitors already have some and are examining.
Looks like Myriam is now on the steel chainstay
Pro is the new name for their high end line.
In my experience, "Pro" tends to mean it costs more. Also see "Elite," "Ultimate," or the model with the most extra letters after it.
Prohibitively expensive
Don’t forget “Factory”
It’s about 61 euro per Albert gravity pro on R2 right now, which is admittedly higher than 42 euro per Tacky chan, but still very reasonable for us unfortunate enough to live in the US with crazy msrp prices for maxxis
Still, all these comments on prices are dumb af
The Tacky on the same website was around 60 when it was a new thing, and the current price is already down, wait a bit and the Albert will be sub 50€ like always
Maybe our friend from Maxxis can answer, but does anyone know why new tires from Maxxis and Schwalbe cost 50-70€ in Europe and $90-120 in the US? It's sometimes double the cost, or more. I appreciate that currency plays a role (the dollar is relatively strong), but that wouldn't double the cost. Is this a tariff thing?
They came out in sympathy with Europeans and decided to subsidise us when they saw the prices for Fox suspension this side of the pond. 😄
Would love to see the answer to this. We have the same circumstances with DT here stateside and I remember DT officially saying that part of the crazy retail price in the US compared to EU is because of their after sales support in Colorado being built into the MSRP. That never really added up for me.