It’s a really weird claim that they don’t exist when the first search result for “airless bike” is an amazon link with a large selection of airless mountain bike tires. Is he using a really restrictive definition of mountain bike tires? I looked into this when I moved somewhere I was getting constant tube punctures, but the general consensus seemed to be that they all just suck for various reasons. I ended up going with tire guards plus bike tubes with sealant, this combo seems to work very well, only need to replace the tubes once or twice a year despite multiple thorns getting stuck in the tires every day that would otherwise cause a flat.
If it’s thorns that are doing it, have you tried tubeless? That sealant stuff will seal a pretty sizeable thorn hole pretty much almost instantly. I’ve had rides where you look at it after, and you can see all these little pinholes of sealant poking through, but you haven’t had a noticeable loss of air. I’ve only ever had one flat on tubeless so far, in the decade or so that I’ve been running it, and it was because I was being arrogant and running my tires at basically 10psi. Got it caught between two sharp rocks that basically did a snakebite on the sidewall. Still got it plugged and blown back up on the trail in under 5 minutes (which is my opinion the best part of tubeless). The cons are your tires go flat if it sits for a period of time, and you have to top them up fairly regularly, but it’s worth it IMO.
It’s a really weird claim that they don’t exist when the first search result for “airless bike” is an amazon link with a large selection of airless mountain bike tires. Is he using a really restrictive definition of mountain bike tires? I looked into this when I moved somewhere I was getting constant tube punctures, but the general consensus seemed to be that they all just suck for various reasons. I ended up going with tire guards plus bike tubes with sealant, this combo seems to work very well, only need to replace the tubes once or twice a year despite multiple thorns getting stuck in the tires every day that would otherwise cause a flat.
If it’s thorns that are doing it, have you tried tubeless? That sealant stuff will seal a pretty sizeable thorn hole pretty much almost instantly. I’ve had rides where you look at it after, and you can see all these little pinholes of sealant poking through, but you haven’t had a noticeable loss of air. I’ve only ever had one flat on tubeless so far, in the decade or so that I’ve been running it, and it was because I was being arrogant and running my tires at basically 10psi. Got it caught between two sharp rocks that basically did a snakebite on the sidewall. Still got it plugged and blown back up on the trail in under 5 minutes (which is my opinion the best part of tubeless). The cons are your tires go flat if it sits for a period of time, and you have to top them up fairly regularly, but it’s worth it IMO.
Haven’t tried tubeless but definitely can attest that sealant works very well with tubes also