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This is a carriage that people travelled around in before cars were invented. Notice the wheels with narrow thin "tyres" of maybe leather, or later on, solid rubber. It gave a smoother ride than metal, but not much! This is actually a surrey.
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When the first cars were built, they were called horse-less carriages, because they were like a carriage, but had a motor instead of being pulled by a horse. They did not move very fast, but they had narrow tyres that were rubber filled with air. The wheels still looked very like the old ones that had solid rubber tyres, or metal rims, though. |
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The pneumatic (or air-filled) rubber tyre is something we take for granted today. It was invented in 1888 by John Dunlop (heard of Dunlop tyres?!) and it made bikes and cars a lot more comfortable to travel in. Notice that the tyres on this car are a lot wider than the old ones, so they have a much better grip on the road. They have a tread, which lets the rubber "hold on" to the road, and cope with wet conditions without skidding so badly. |
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The tread on the left is from a mountain bike. You can see it is very rough. Why do you think tyres for this kind of riding are different from normal bicycle tyres. What happens when the tread on your tyres wears down? |