As From Today,

it is officially summer,

as that is when the clocks went forward by 1 hour, and as it is summer countless bicycles will be taken out of winter storage, and the queues for bicycle tyre repairs will start to form outside of Deen's Bicycle Garage in Beckenham, 

but if this space-age alloy bicycle tire comes to the mainstream market, punctures could be a thing of the past, photographs The SMART Tire Company, the innovative airless bicycle tire originally developed and tested by NASA for future Mars Rover missions. Dubbed METL, the revolutionary tire is made from smart memory metal that, rearranges its molecular structure when you bend it, but instantly goes back to its original shape. It basically has the flexibility of rubber but is as strong as titanium, which means that you probably won’t have to change another bicycle tire in your lifetime, which will be bad news for garages like Deen's I would guess,

“Wires are woven together to create an airless tire structure that has the ability to flex with the terrain, unlike current rigid wheels. The SMA (Shape Memory Alloy) material acts as a shock-absorber and can traverse rock-laden terrain effortlessly without breaking or damaging the tire,” NASA describes the underlying technology behind the METL tire, technically, the METL smart tire is really a rim with an outer edge made out of a super-elastic material called NiTinol+, which moulds over bumps in the road but bounces back to its original shape almost instantly, 

manufactured using a process that heats the wheels to temperatures of over 500 degrees Celsius, METL tires are designed for extreme temperatures and the environments of planets like Mars, the thought being that you can expect these airless tires to last a lot longer than regular tubeless tires, You’re probably thinking that having a metallic tire come into contact with the asphalt isn’t a very good idea, and you’re right, that’s why the metallic component of the METL tire will not actually be in contact with the asphalt. The tire will be coated with a new kind of rubber-like material called Polyurethanium, which is suitable for all kinds of weather conditions, and offers great grip for superior handling, but so far no mention of price, I have a feeling that one tire will be more than the cost of an average bicycle, so all is not all bad news for Deen's!