3iS 



RECREATION 



danger from punctures or rupture, no pres- 

 sure to pump up, no wear, no bother ; and 

 further than this, there doesn't seem to be 

 any good reason why automobiles with good 

 springs and a long wheel base should not 

 ride as comfortably when driven at a moder- 

 ate speed over fairly good roads when 

 equipped with solid tires, as with pneumatics. 

 But in actual practice the pneumatic tire 

 has the better of it. It yields, gives, is not 

 pounded as is the harder tire. ' There is much 

 truth in the clever advertisement of one of 

 the tire companies : "We swallow the ob- 

 struction." In other words, the air cushion 

 is always capable of being compressed, no 

 matter how hard the tire is pumped up, and 

 thus the surface of the tire yields in going 

 over an obstacle and is not injured, whereas 

 with the solid tire there is no appreciable 

 yielding, and if the obstacle is a sharp one, 

 it is very apt to damage the tire. 



AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. 



Not many automobilists have tried both 

 solid and pneumatic tires for any length of 

 time on the same car, and therefore the fol- 

 lowing experience should be interesting. The 

 car used was of nine horsepower, weighing, 

 with all tanks filled and ready for the road, 



!>975 pounds, and resting on 2 x / 2 x 34 inch 

 solid tires. Thus equipped the car was oper- 

 ated for 4,727 miles with the following re- 

 sults : 



Total running expense $171.40 



Tire expense alone 64.80 



Mileage on gallon of gasolene 20.50 



Total expense per mile .0328 



When the car had been run 4,727 miles, 

 solid tires were discontinued, and 3^2 x 34 

 inch pneumatic tires substituted. After 

 making this change, the car weighed, all ready 

 for the road, 1,850 pounds. The operator 

 then ran the car for 7,266 miles with the 

 following results : 



Total running expense $308.32 



Tire expense about 135.00 



Mileage on gallon of gasolene 28.00 



The expense per mile figures out about the 

 same for the solid tires as for the pneumatic, 

 but the owner claims he would never go 

 back to solid tires on account of the greater 

 vibration. In this particular case some of 

 the objections to the solid tires did not seem 

 to hold good ; in other words, after 4,000 

 miles of running, little or no expense was 

 needed to repair any damage done by the 

 jolting and vibration caused by the solid 

 tire. 



K-'*.! 



A MOUNTAIN ROAD IN CALIFORNIA. 



