The Cadilac of wheel barrows
We finally got around to
upgrading the ramshackled
wheel barrow with this
state of the art Kobalt, six cubic foot beauty.
The handles are steel and the
tire is a new type of technolgy made from some sort of solid material
that never goes flat yet feels just as easy to push as our old air
filled version. These two features boosted the price by 20 dollars,
which I figure will be worth it in time saved from future flats.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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It would not surprise me if the tire was molded polyurethane foam. Because of the nature of that material and the foaming process, you'd get a foam core with a more or less solid skin. (But it could also be a standard outer tire with a foamed rubber inner tire.)
Some years ago solid bicycle tires from that material started appearing here. But they never caught on here, because of the higher rolling resistance compared to a regular air-filled tire. I suspect this will not be as much of an issue with a wheelbarrow.
Another thing about those solid tires was that replacing them was a nightmare, because it was very hard to get them off and on the rim (imagine trying to put an inflated bicycle tire on a rim and you get the idea
).
Vester --- I'm glad this model gets your seal of approval! We spent quite a bit of time poking around, looking at the options, and this did seem to be the sturdiest one. Since I manage to break wheelbarrows a lot, I figured sturdy was important.
Roland --- I had tried to ride a bicycle once with wheels like this, and hated it, so I wasn't sold on the idea for a wheelbarrow. But when we tried the one in the store (and then tried this one out when we got it home), the solid wheel didn't seem to impede my movement at all. Hopefully we'll never have to replace it!
Did you try it with the wheelbarrow loaded? Without a significant load, you won't feel much of a difference. In the foto above the tire doesn't look deformed at all.
OTOH, If you don't keep the air pressure topped-up in an air-filled tire, it will deflate over time, and the rolling resistance will increase. That is why I check and top up my bicycle tires every other week, and why I check my car's tires before longer rides. This will of course not be much on an issue with the "solid" foam tire.
Depending on the chemistry and physical state of the material and the blowing agent used for the foam tire, the foam tire could become harder or softer over time, though.
We filled the wheelbarrow up to wheel it home since the truck is stuck, and it did very well! I was impressed at how well it went over uneven terrain despite being loaded down (though I wouldn't have wanted to make that trip with it once the ground thaws into mud.)
I'll have to take a look at the tire next time it's loaded up and see how it looks.