# Tannus Tyres...the whole hog!



## Bill (27 May 2018)

I posted a subject on here some time ago about these new tyres. Last week I had a train ride with my Brompton over to Sutton Coldfield to a local Tannus stockist to have my existing Marathon Plus tyre on the front wheel replaced with another bright red Tannus tyre! (I have this colour to match my red frame ends) The 'ride' is normal to me and the speed situation seems the same. Its nice not to have to re-pump the front tyre every time I use the Brompton, and of course the worry concerning punctures has gone. Actually the 'ride' situation was a pretty pointless thing to worry about as the tyre pressure was 80+pounds which means that the Marathon Plus tyre was harder than the Tannus tyre....in fact I found it VERY hard to depress the Marathon Plus with my thumbs but the Tannus had 'give' on being pressed in the same manner! So there you are , no worries 'out there' in wildest Worcestershire with un-wanted flat tyres in the middle of no-where and no palaver......


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## CopperBrompton (28 May 2018)

They do seem to polarise people. I rode on Tannus tyres for all of five minutes, and that was a good five minutes too long for me!


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## smokeysmoo (28 May 2018)

I'm keen to try these as I don't have £100 to throw away on something I might regret.

Oh and reviews haven't helped, I've read them all


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## Bill (30 May 2018)

Smokey, You should not read too much reviews as most people who write them have pre-conceived views on the said subject before they start to write them! These tyres are tyres ....but solid ones. 'Normal' tyres have air in them..... Looking at them on a cycle there is no difference to 'air' or 'air less' until you meet that rotten flint or nail and then you have got hassle.... (and if its raining) a wet neck! The word ....'might'....means you need to take a chance. Its up to you but I just sit on the Brompton and pedal along knowing there is no chance of a nice sunny day being spoiled by a ROTTEN flat tyre....


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## Drago (30 May 2018)

They are intrighing, but its the inability to easily repair damaged spokes wot puts me off.


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## smokeysmoo (30 May 2018)

@Bill - The firmness doesn't bother me as I run my Gatorkins maxed out at 120psi so the Tannus would possibly be a tad more forgiving anwyay.

@Drago - Also the spoke thing doesn't bother me too much as my wheels aren't lightweight racy jobbies, they're pretty bombproof Halos, (famous last words).

The latest thing I read was with them flattening out over time. I don't know if this is an isolated issue or a real problem with them, but with my fat @rse it's definitely something that's on my mind.


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## smokeysmoo (2 Jun 2018)

Well I called into a dealer today for a chat about Tannus tyres, and his immediate advice was................don't bother.

Now I should add that this advice was based on fitting them to my CAAD10, which he said would ruin the ride.

For a commuting bike, a hub geared bike, a Brompton perhaps then they probably are a no brainer, but for an out an out road bike, (even though I have never, and will never be of racing weight), and one that only comes out at weeekends and in fair weather for that matter, then there's no substitute for quality tyres maintained at the correct pressures IMO.

Talking of pressure, he had a small section of tyre on a counter display, and I had a good feel of it, now Tannus quote the 700 x 25 as equivalent to 100psi, but it felt even harder than my 120psi tyres, when I tried pressed my thumb into it I couldn't depress it at all, even the dealer said he doubted the assumed equivalent pressure was doubtful.

So decision made, and it's a no from me I'm afraid.


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## silva (22 Aug 2019)

Apparently they have something new: https://tannus.co.uk/armour/
A kinda protective foam between out and inner tire. 
It needs a smaller size/width inner tube to make space for the foam.


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## rogerzilla (23 Aug 2019)

It's not the firmness of the tyre, it's the way it rolls over bumps and irregularities. A pneumatic tyre loses less speed on rough roads because pressure acts in all directions, absorbing the irregularity, and the air acts as a spring with very little hysteresis loss. A solid tyre is a lot less efficient as it can't do these things. Try pushing a pram/stroller with and without pneumatic tyres and the difference is far more obvious because of the lower power input.


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## alicat (23 Aug 2019)

Hmm, the Armour version doesn't come as small as Brompton tyres. Smallest is 20".


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## Tenkaykev (23 Aug 2019)

alicat said:


> Hmm, the Armour version doesn't come as small as Brompton tyres. Smallest is 20".



I saw that too. In a similar vein I saw a post that linked to a German company who make inner tubes shaped a bit like a sausage, the idea is that you don't have to remove the wheel ( which is a bit of a faff if it's the rear wheel on a Brompton.
They looked well thought out but they don't do a Brompton suitable one.


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## silva (24 Aug 2019)

I wonder how "foam" rimes with "armour".
The protection is probably just based on the increased distance that an object must bridge in order to puncture the inner air balloon.
I rather see a trap for objects, unnoticed till leak, and at inspection time hard to find and also to get out without further damaging the tires wall. What's the difference between a flat now and a flat 10 minutes later?

More generally, couldn't they produce tires with just thicker rubber / denser reinforcement?
What's the drawback of a heavier tire?
https://road.cc/content/feature/194...-dead-frames-skinny-tyres-rotating-weight-and
http://www.biketechreview.com/reviews/wheels/63-wheel-performance
"Roughly, the average rider power requirements on a course with a zero net elevation gain is broken down into 60% rider drag, 8% wheel drag, 8% frame drag, 12% rolling resistance .5% wheel inertia forces and 8% bike/rider inertia. The uphill TT example given is a special case where the rider aerodynamics and the bike/rider weight have nearly equal contributions to power – somewhere around 35% each with wheel mass contributing around 1%. The steeper the hill, the more important mass becomes and the less important aerodynamics becomes. In all cases, however, there is approximately 3% of the average power unaccounted for."

Look at the wheel inertia forces on the power requirements, it's neglectable relative to the others.
So, one could simply produce a tire with a thicker profile of the hard rubber part, no anti leak and foams specialties needed.
For those that consider a flat (and its entire story of time and cost) as more trouble than a minute later every day.

.


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## simon.r (24 Aug 2019)

silva said:


> More generally, couldn't they produce tires with just thicker rubber / denser reinforcement?



That’ll be a Schwalbe Marathon Plus.


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## Ming the Merciless (24 Aug 2019)

Most punctures are rarely the first time an object embeds in the tyre. It's after its had time to work through the tyre. Remove stuff out of the tyre before riding and you'll see less punctures anyway.


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## silva (26 Aug 2019)

simon.r said:


> That’ll be a Schwalbe Marathon Plus.


That tire has an anti leak under the rubber, same purpose as that "foam" here. 
I rather prefer just thicker rubber. The tire would have a longer life then too, no reason to replace when seeing the antileak coming through. The anti leak compound is clearly inferior to the rubber, just keep on riding after the rubber wore off till there, it won't be a long ride. 3 mm more rubber would just double the life.


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## silva (26 Aug 2019)

YukonBoy said:


> Most punctures are rarely the first time an object embeds in the tyre. It's after its had time to work through the tyre. Remove stuff out of the tyre before riding and you'll see less punctures anyway.


For some reason, for me, that is only the case for the front tire. Likely due to the much lower weight on it.
The rear tire was always a near direct leak, or none. I never found glass in the rear tire, and a hundred times in the front tire. I think the objects are pressed out in the rear wheel case, and if not, it's just an instant flat. The last year I used Schwalbes Marathon Plus, apparently a new version - the antileak had another color than the many years before - anything that reached the antileak, wasn't pressed out. It's like the new (?) antileak compound "sticks" objects.


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## Kell (4 Sep 2019)

silva said:


> "Roughly, the average rider power requirements on a course with a zero net elevation gain is broken down into 60% rider drag, 8% wheel drag, 8% frame drag, 12% rolling resistance .5% wheel inertia forces and 8% bike/rider inertia.
> 
> .



I was under the impression that drag was a much higher factor. 

If you can find the Guy Martin Speed programme, when they built a tandem, I’m pretty sure it was around the 93% mark that was quoted.


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## Kell (4 Sep 2019)

Just found it on Daily Motion.

Mike Burrows explains it all - and I guess he knows a little bit about bike design.

From about 5:15 in the video below.


View: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3g0lqm


I was slightly out.

90% air resistance.
7% rolling resistance
3% mechanical resistance.


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