Popping up on all the bike blogs lately is a product that really has me excited. There is a company claims to have invented a self-inflating tire. It has a hose built into the tread that forces air into the tire squeezed in by the rider's weight. The final pressure is then limited by a valve that bleeds off extra pressure once the ideal pressure is reached.
Assuming this thing actually works (the tire has yet to be invented), I am excited more for other applications, not just bicycles. I have on numerous occasions told my wife that this country could save millions of gallons of gas every day if people would keep their car tires at (or above) the recommended pressures. Imagine if every car in the US got a tiny one mile per gallon better? My thought was that someone, like our government, who actually cared about lowering gas usage and pollution, could put free-to-use air pressure stations at gas stations. It would really add up quickly. According to Project America, we drove over 260,000 million miles per month in 2008. But I digress.
This new idea could KEEP people's tires properly inflated in summer or winter, with slow leaks or not, trucks, cars, anything that uses gas.
Needless to say, I will be watching this company like a hawk!
UPDATE:
Apparently this company's investors have decided that it is not as exciting as I. They are no longer asking for funding. Oh well.
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