Benjamin Krempel has come up with an invention called Dubbed the PumpTube, the idea here is that the inner tube on your motorcycle’s tires will be able to self-pump, meaning that as you cycle, it’ll continuously pump air in your tires to ensure that it really never deflates and that it’ll be at the pressure that you have set.
Air is drawn in from the atmosphere through a one-way valve, which sits in the valve stem. Instead of going directly into the inner tube, however, the air goes into one end of the tube-like pumping mechanism, which runs along the outside perimeter of the main inner tube. As the tire rolls against the ground, the pumping mechanism is compressed, forcing air into the inner tube. The resulting absence of air in the pumping mechanism creates a vacuum effect, drawing more air in through the valve.
That said, if the inner tube is already at its desired pressure (which can be set on a dial on the valve stem), no additional air is pulled in.
The idea behind the technology is that riders will no longer need to pump up their tires in order to compensate for seepage or pinhole leaks. While larger punctures may not have as much of an effect as they would otherwise, they’ll still ultimately need to be patched.
The fancy valve stem can be set at a pressure that the rider wants and when the tire is at that pressure, no more air is drawn into the tire. The pressure desired is set directly on the valve stem. The PumpTube will sell for $30 to $55 each and the designer hopes to raise money on Kickstarter next year. This sounds like a system that should be adapted to cars to keep tires filled at the correct pressure.
