I have never even worked a buggy (but I have one being shipped to me) so this could be a dumb question...

Has anyone tried rim locks on a buggy?
A rim lock holds the tire against the rim independent of tire pressure.
I used these while riding Observed Trials (motorcycles) many years ago.
We would modify the tire pressure around for each event due to the local conditions that day and often run low pressures to get a wider footprint.
I have run my tires down to 3 pounds and up to 15.

Would this be useful?
Anyone make them?

Maybe it would require metal rims.

Rim locks are used on motorcycles to prevent the tire from rotating on the rim when accelerating. There is not torque put on a kite buggy tire in the direction of rotation. What would the point be?
S

Are you talking about the rim lock they use on the rock crawlers ? so that you mount the tires on the outside of the rim to allow running tires with pretty much no air?


We use inner tubes instead, you can lower the pressure all the way down to 3 psi with no problem.

The rim locks also helped prevent the tire from getting rolled off the rim due to side forces with low pressures.

In trials the front tire uses 1 lock and front wheel braking forces are rarely an issue in trials - the back had 2 due to the extra torque. A few riders would use 2 on the front depending on tire types and pressures selected.

We always ran inner tubes. I will check out the rock crawlers...

I have made beadlocks for several people, but none of them were for buggies, all for trucks. Beadlocks would be pretty awesome looking, but none of the wheels that I know of would allow for beadlocks to be installed. You would need to design a custom wheel for the beadlock to screw/bolt into.

As mentioned, the main purpose for beadlocks/rimlocks is to keep the wheel from spinning inside of the tire. I used them back when I was racing but don't see a use for them on a buggy. It could be a cosmetic thing though.

So maybe this was a solution looking for a problem - LOL

Has anyone rolled a tire off the rim due to side forces?

We have rolled a tire off the rim before. But it is only a problem when the air pressure is to low and winds and kite to big!! It takes a lot of side pressure to do this. My son TheKidd has mastered it in the past. But I think we fixed it with tubes!