Rideair - Never Ride Flat - Reinventing Bike Pumps

Hi Riders,

A sudden flat, or even slight lack of air, is an experience all bikers encounter and can be very frustrating while on a ride.
Pumping air into your tire is annoying, time consuming, messy, and can be quite hard!

We have developed a new product, called RideAir in order to solve this problem. The silky smooth design along with its simplistic and clever features give the RideAir a real edge.

We are launching this product on Kickstarter in a month and would really appreciate your expert opinion on it.

You can read all about it in our website: http://www.ride-air.com

Here is the video we prepared for the campaign: https://youtu.be/wIBmI1CGGoM

Thanks,

Asaf Lahav
Co-founder
RideAir

 

So you've taken the basic CO2 inflator rig and made it 20 times larger?

I suppose it's the ideal solution for those that permanently ride around with a slow leak.

 

Hi CAMPYBOB,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, it's bigger. But unlike the disposable CO2, the RideAir capsule can be easily refilled using any air-compressor in any gas station and in the long run the RideAir will cost you less then the CO2.
We also believe that by using a refillable capsule, instead of the disposable CO2 we contribute our small share to the planet.

 

What fill capacity does it have? Listed as number of fills to a certain pressure for some different tire sizes would be nice.

I.e. if I run a skinny tire road bike, what pressure can it give me? And how many fills out of one charge?

What pressure will it give my 29er 2.2"? How many fills out of one charge?

What pressure will it give my Fat Bike running 4.7" tires?

"Pumping air into your tire is annoying, time consuming, messy, and can be quite hard!"

Getting a flat is annoying. Pumping isn't a big deal.
I use a full-length frame pump. 20-30 strokes gets me to a rideable pressure. Not much time to talk about.
Now, if I only have a pocket sized pump I might be looking at hundred strokes or more. That can take some time.
Messy? Bikes in use tend to get a bit messy. And the amount of valve handling needed seems to be exactly the same for your gadget than for any other inflation method. Can't see how you expect to do better. Wet-wipe storage included?
"quite hard" Huh? This one I'm really strugging with. Anything you don't know how to do is always quite hard. but learning how to pump a bike tire is really very basic. Someone struggling with that is unlikely to have the skills needed to replace the tube and remove the reason for the flat in the first place.

I think you missed the boat.
When 29ers were new, the easiest available CO2 cartridges weren't big enough to get those tires up to riding pressure. If your gadget does, then you'd have had a great selling point as a piece of race kit for 29er bikes.
Now, extra large CO2 cartridges are almost just as easily available as the regular size, so no longer a problem.

If you have pressure/volume enough to get Fat Bikes up to riding pressure, maybe you have some customers there. They can't still use CO2 cartridges.
(well, they can, but they need several)

 

Well, it has some merit - but again, it depends on the specifics. It looks kind of big and clunky and heavy - some people may object to the size, weight, and drag it puts on the bike.

I like the overall concept - CO2 cylinders get expensive after a while, and a small, portable pump can be a pain with high-pressure tires.

What I personally would like to see is something similar to the concept, but smaller, sleeker, that is an battery operated air compressor/pump, rather than just a storage cylinder. I haven't some across anything like that - it may exist, and I haven't found it - but maybe the technical difficulties of downsizing an air compressor to something that would fit on a bike are just too hard at this time?

 

The messiest and hardest part of a flat, is fixing the flat. Inflation is pretty easy, CO2 is lightweight, cheap (~50 cents a pop) and you can recycle the cartridges.


I am trying to estimate the usefulness of this inflation device. Help me out with the math here:

This unit has a 650mL volume and contains pressurized air up to usual shop air pressures which is about 90psi?

The volume of a 700x25c tire is about 1000mL. The volume of a 700x40c tire is about 2600mL.

So with this device I could fill my 25c tire up to about (90psi * 650mL) /(1000mL + 650mL) = 35.5 psi. The 40c tire would fill up to about 18psi. The situation is a little better if you prefill the empty tube with some air - but that requires a pump.

Unless I am wrong, these pressures are way too low to safely ride on; even if you could pump the container to twice the pressure (180psi). Higher pressures are easily achievable with a hand pump. A frame pump is even better and with that I can use my bottle holder free for bottles.

 

Where do you get CO2 cylinders for 50 cents? - they run about $3 for the 12 gram and $4 for the 16 gram size around here at both chain (Performance Cycle, REI, American Cycle and Fitness) and LBS.

 

Buy in bulk, I purchased a 48 pack with free shipping from Nashbar for about $25 bucks a while back.

Another guy I ride with purchased his off of Ebay.

 

Hi,
Thanks for all your comments. They all well noted and I would try to clarify.

As it was already noted by maydog, the fill capacity is 650ml. It will refill a 29er/2.2" to about a full tire with 30PSI. It won't work for the Fat tires.
I suggest you look at this product not just for the expert bikers such as you guys seems to be. There are also some that pumping is an effort for them such as kids for example. We believe that someone that uses his bike for transportation on a daily bases will encounter the situation were he is all dressed up for work and needs to give the tire a little boost and would really look at pumping as a bother.

We tried to make it a little smaller at first but it came out filling barely a 20" tire. We believe that in spite the fact that it's of a water bottle size, the fact that it can fill a 29er or 1.25 times a 26" is worth the size for some. BTW, it is pretty lightweight - around 500g

We designed it to hold around 200 psi. The usual compressor will give you 145 psi. you will find it in gas stations and bike shops as you probably know. As I mentioned before, a 29er will be filled in around 29-30 psi.

 

So maxed out, it may give a road bike about 70-75 psi, which is low but useable. The problem is that flats are due to leaks that need to be repaired before filling. If the leak is not repaired, another top off will be needed a few minutes down the road at which time this device will be empty.

Changing/repairing a flat tire is more difficult and dirty work than inflating it. The videos ignore that completely, showing instead the unrealistic scenario of having a completely flat tire that hold air just fine when filled. That only happens when a bike is unused without top offs for a long time.

I'd be more keen on a bottle sized inflator if it could be used multiple times without recharging and inflate tires to the proper pressure. As-is I can see no reason from switching from CO2 with a hand pump backup. A compact foot pump or a battery powered unit could fit the bill for me.

 

CO2 cartridges cost as little as a buck a piece: http://www.redrockminnesota.com/30-16-gram-threaded-co2-cartridges/ just in the blink of a Google.

I go through maybe 3 or 4 per year.

They are 100% recyclable.

How many CO2 cartridges can be made for the same carbon footprint as your air reservoir / gage / hose?

Also, most gas stations, in my are at least, charge a mean old capitalist 25 cent piece to make their compressors run these days. If the rider does not have a compressor at home he's going to factor that into his perpetual slow leak.

I can see 'some' folks (urban hipsters on fixies with slow leaks that never gets fixed) finding some practical value in keeping a water bottle cage filled with a portable pressurized can of air. Road bike riders...not so much.

As Maydog stated, you still got to fix that puncture on the road. Most tires leak out fast enough carrying an automotive-size 5-gallon air tank around isn't going to get you very far up the road after that nail or rock puts a hole in the tube.

 

Hey everybody!
Thanks again for all your comments.
In case anyone liked the idea, we are live on Kickstarter
Asaf
The RideAir Team

 

You're getting a bargain. Around here it's a buck for enough time to top off 2 car tires.

 

"It's refillable!"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBsm0LzSP0

 

WTF.

Frame fitting pump - aka dog kosh. Dual purpose excellence.

CO2 is for those crappy 8 pint mini kegs that folks had in the 70's and for making 'almost lethal projectiles' from.

 

I would llke to see a solar charged Li-Ion batteried electric pump instead of this Ride-Air storage tank that looks like it will give me only about 20 PSI to get home on.

 

Why don't you just use a conventional bike pump to top off your car tires?
It's really not that hard, takes maybe 10 mins and a little bit of elbow grease. It's a good way to work your triceps a bit too.
I top off both my 14" tires and my girls 18" tires with my Lezyne pump.

 

Well, for starters, I don't have an extra 10-20 minutes if I notice a low tire when I'm leaving for work (which is basically what I use my car for, getting there and back), and while I'm just a lowly public employee, they still pay me enough that a buck is worth saving time and effort.

I have a gym for working my triceps.

 

From your profile pic you look around retirement age, yet your still punching a clock?
See if you took the time to properly monitor your vehicles condition, then you would know when they need a top off and you could have been saving those bucks all these years! I know what most people think "its only a dollar!" but over the course of a few decades those dollars turn into tens of thousands of dollars and can mean the difference of being able to retire at 40-50 instead of 60-70.
Just my two cents, when it comes to spending time/effort or spending $$, I ALWAYS spend the time/effort and bank the money. I guess I have the extra time because I don't really watch TV or any of that stuff most people seem to fill their lives with.
People think of me as crazy because I actually enjoy doing my own preventative maintenance on the things I own, I would much rather pump my tires by hand then hand over my hard earned dollars so an air compressor can do it for me, not to mention I want my kids to grow up with an ecosystem they can live in, so if its a matter of me doing something with my muscles and not using up electricity then I will use my muscles.

 

I have seven cars and trucks. 2 large farm tractors. 3 garden tractors. All kinds of farm implements. 2 trailers. A couple wheelbarrows. Several motorcycles. Lots of bicycles. A few other devices that have inflatable tires.

I suppose I could air them all up with a hand pump. But that ain't going to happen. Ever.

I own 3 large air compressors and stash a 12V compressor in each vehicle. And I do enough maintenance on all of the above that I sure as Hell don't have make myself feel good by proudly hand-pumping the tires up.

Note to self: Buy even larger diesel engines, another pre-1967 car and test the multi-fuel whole-house generator.

Retire? Not even Donald Trump is thinking of retirement. There's work to be done.