BALLOON TYRES.
POWER-SAVING ADVANTAGES. While balloon tyres do offer a certain amount of drag due to increased 5 attractive area it has been found that their advantage as power savers more than compensate for their power losses. This is particularly noticeable in hill climbing. Motorists are finding that they can climb rough hills better with balloon tyres, and this fact has resulted in considerable speculation. The explanation, however, is simple. A high pressure tyre, in striking a hole or a hump, flies off the ground. This causes power to be delivered and concentrated on the wheel off the ground, since the action of tire differential is always such that power goes to the wheel offering the least resistance. With one rear wheel, and then the ■other, going off the ground alternately and spinning- free the engine does
a lot of unnecessary work in the course of a long climb. From an efficiency standpoint this represents a loss, but in practice it is true that the spinning of the wheel often helped a motorist get over a hill in high gear because the action was the same as slipping the clutch. The necessity for giving the engine this sort of lift, however, was in part duet, to earlier losses in traction and power on the hill. Balloon tyres do not involve this earlier loss.
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Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 116, 14 January 1926, Page 7
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223BALLOON TYRES. Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 116, 14 January 1926, Page 7
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