The designers and developers of that tyre either don't have too much faith in it or haven't put their minds in gear yet.
A tyre is a suspension medium. If their tyre is so good, why do they need to demonstrated it on a bike that is already fully suspended by hydraulics front and rear? Duh.
More. The tyre has holes through it, clearly essential to its operation. But they demonstrate it on a mountain bike, on tracks clearly washed by a good deal of water at other seasons, and therefore muddy. What happens when those holes clog up with mud or worse, with clay? The thing will ride like it's on bands of iron. When the clay dries... Duh.
It strikes me as a bodge on top of all the other bodges made by ergonomically ignorant or mindless bike designers, a compromise to fix other compromises, and bringing more unpleasantnesses with it.
They developers may send me a set of their tyres in the fattest 622mm rim format they have protos in and I'll test them on a bike known to be extremely comfortable without any suspension beyond its 622x60 Big Apple Liteskins. I'll give them a fair test over a 100km of my bad lanes. If they can match the Big Apples for comfort, then there will be an advance (unconditionally puncture proof!) in the sort of bike (commuters, tarmac luxury tourers) where the through-holes would not be a disadvantage, where the customers don't care what the best solution to even a marginal advantage costs, where they have the confidence not to care what the fashion victims who infest cycling think, and where almost everyone by definition is a tech freak and/or technically savvy. (Yeah, right, in addition to their other problems, they're looking at the wrong market.)
If there is no comfort advantage on an otherwise unsuspended bike (we'll overlook the Brooks saddle!) it is a gimmick, ipso facto not worth any money, never mind the premium new technology always demands to cover development costs.
BTW, I'm 20K or more away from my last puncture, ever since I changed to Schwalbe banded tyres, first Marathon Plus (and the Bontrager workalike), then Big Apples Liteskins. This new tyre is therefore a solution in search of a problem that Schwalbe, a brand with street cred, has already beaten conclusively. The developers should put their minds in gear and first define the problem because right now they are in fantasy-land.
Andre Jute
