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Unread 28-11-2014, 14:27
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FRC #1197 (Torbots)
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Re: Traction Questions

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ether View Post
Here's an interesting thought experiment:

On a dry sandy beach, which has more rolling resistance:

1) a bicycle with skinny racing tires, or

2) the same bicycle with fat balloon tires?


Which has more traction?
Is this question posed at t=0, or at some positive time? Living near the beach, and having plowed through some sand on a bike (mountain tires) on one or two occasions, that does (kind of) change the answer. (Note: I usually stayed on the bike path. Did hit a few drifts, though, in addition to the time I took a shortcut off of it.)


If it's at some positive t, I'm going to be going with the skinny tires having more rolling resistance and more traction. But...
Spoiler for But:
... the reason that's the case is that they're rim-deep in sand, so the more effective traction goes to the balloon tires. On the other hand, mountain tires are going to get you dug in even faster due to the knobs.
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Past teams:
2003-2007: FRC0330 BeachBots
2008: FRC1135 Shmoebotics
2012: FRC4046 Schroedinger's Dragons

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