I was talking to flexiblade and he is planning on running on solid rubber tires at NABX . He is going to get those at Home depot. Has anyone ever run on the lake with solid rubber tires? I would love to hear how they ride, I hate running out of rubber and worring about my tires popping everytime I slide out.

Hey Sailors,
Oh Absolutely!

As long as the secret is out... Tiny Tires!
Adds a bit to ride harshness but oh the sweet speed.

No more worries of your tires swelling up and exploding.
No more heat-related failures at all!

In fact, some of us have started trying some darling little 6" hard-rubber tires.
Lucky the lake bed is so low... nothing rubs.


Safen Up! Buggy On!

"Often wrong... Never in doubt"

the coreylama

I never knew Home Depot had them or anyone for that matter...got a lot of thorns where I ride and it would be nice to know I wouldn't have a blowout. Unfortunately, I would need to stay with the standard size tires 8" because I don't have the clearance luxury where I ride.

So are they in the Wheelbarrow section of HD? Where else can you buy them?

Yeah they are nestled in with the wheelbarrow stuff - they are around $30 a piece - but will last you a while - one important thing though - they do shrink over time - so if you try and replace just one there will be a noticeable size difference between the two - so basically if you end up wearing one out you will need to replace both with a new set. They also have I think a 10" to 12" space from bearing face to bearing face. You would need to get longer axle bolts in which to attach them to your buggy - luckily for me my ride is custom so I can adapt my axle spacing to acomidate for this. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the info Flexiblade...Helps a lot!

For thorns I fill my tubes with Slime, I use a 10oz bottle in 3 tubes and It works great, has lasted almost 2 seasons.

Yep...slime works great...had a tube go out (just too many holes I think) and purchased the slime inner tubes from Home Depot...haven't tried those yet, but they should work great.

...I don't know why, but the thought of trying a solid rubber tire has always intrigued me.

It's a stiff ride - little to no give - make sure that the tires your going to get are the denser rubber - I have seen similar tires at Ace and tru value that are much lighter - but it seems like they are made of some kind of dense foam rubber - seems like they wouldn't last too long on the playa - that and they are $40 - $50 a piece.

You might want to try filling your tires with liquid nitrogen like we do with the race cars.

Solid? Sounds a little scary to me. In Flexi B's bug it may be ok, But other than that it sounds to be a bumpy ride with some slow turns. I can't see Sliding out with hard tires on that surface. IMO Dig and flip. Got a pic of them? I could be wrong. How do you think they will wear? Are they rounded or like an eulicid tire? Shrinking may not be as much a problem as pieces chipping off. I am just seeing a flinstone tire when you say solid. I would like to see one. Corey do you have some of these tires? I got some slicks from you last year at this time and they have held up well. Wind permitting I will need some more something by the time it's over this year.

they aren't hard like rocks but rather a hard expanded foam. There are different shapes but they make one rounded just like a normal barrow.

They may be great. I need to go take a look.

The ones I'm running are rubber - there are some that are an expanded foam - but I think these would have a tendency to wear very quickly. No problems with "chunking" - sliding on the playa comes down to speed and axle length - the more momentum you can build up the easier you can break traction depending on your dispersal of weight across an area - too tight an axle length and you could easily plick and roll - done it - this is the original reason why I added the shocks - helped extend the axle length - not too many problems rolling since.

Here's a pic of the solids

And another from the side -

Yea, I have seen them. Wow. You may get going pretty fast with them on the playa.

I hope so.

hey dagon - since you mentioned the slime stuff I've had it in my tires since probably 2 years back... they are stuffed full of #@%$#!les and thorns from the concrete strip over at the fields, but they're stlll inflated and pretty hard... amazing stuff.

I may actually get out buggying this weekend... haven't buggied for about a year now!