Bicycle tire rocks Hello Kitty tread pattern, world wonders why
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 27th 2007 9:04AM
posted Nov 27th 2007 9:04AM
[Via OhGizmo, image courtesy of Nirve]
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lol, wow
Please for the love of GOD make it stop!
I'd rock those, then do skidding stops all the time, while taking pleasure in destroying the hello kitty face.
exactly; isn't it there to remind the cyclist to run over furry innocent cute animals by subtly or not-so-subtly enraging the cyclist as he looks down at his tyre at all that overpowering sugar-coated cuteness?
Good gosh, I almost shot my Pepsi through my nose when I saw that. Please make the madness stop!!
f-ing yankee
coke ftw
Yeah, you would have been better off just saying soda, pop, or cola. Pepsi FTL.
It just happened to be what I was drinking at the time. I guess I should have said, "I almost sprayed my monitors," which I almost did.
But really, make the madness stop!
Wait, I like pepsi. Its like the BluRay of colas.
No way!! I wish that they came in 700's (27" wheels, aka road tires) so that I could get those. How hilarious would that be? It isn't any worse than the Hello Kitty vibrator or condoms.
what the heck is wrong with you guys!? dont you know that 56% of diet cola drinkers think that diet pepsi has more cola taste than diet coke?
Um, did the hello kitty designers think treads were ugly or something? the whole point of them is to keep you from sliding all over the place. and hello kitty is marketed to little kids, so um, yeah, ill let my kids play with safe tires, if i had any
You want tires without thread than if you want safe tires for your kids (as long as you cycle on normal road surface). Thread patterns on cars are to avoid aquaplaning which doesn't happen with bike tires...
So, to stay on topic: If you have decoration on your tires, why not Hello Kitty... it's a break from the usual decorations like on the Continental SportContact:
http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/de/en/continental/bicycle/themes/tires/city/sportcontact/sportcontact_en.html
Hello Kitty is marketed to people of all ages, not just little kids. And bikes are huge in Japan, HK's home market. People don't just ride them for sport; there's really no need to have treads that are capable of gripping the road at 50mph. I'm sure these will be pretty popular there.
I use to own a racing bike and it didn't have a single treads on it. Not only that the tire is half the size of this and I never had any problem. If you planning on riding your bike in the snow or on a very smooth flat surfaces or even wet with these tires. Then you will have a greater chance of slipping. Even with the treads on the tires, you will still slip.
You go through a corner on a wet and muddy and cold day and say again bicycles don't need threads, hell they invented threading for bicycles, before there were cars.
I picture a trail of Hello Kitty bike trail prints.
Oh god...you're right.
[I know a kid who has just about every Hello Kitty thing there is - including toilet paper dispenser?
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/25/hello-kitty-gets-her-own-automatic-toilet-paper-dispenser/
This would be the icing on the cake]
Could you imagine if you committed a crime then got away on a bike with these?
"We are looking for a suspect riding a bike with pussy cat faces for tread"
I would never put that on my bicycle. Screw the whole Hello Kitty thing, I just have a thing about skidding into brick walls or over cliffs due to unsafe tyres. It's not me.
Wanker!
Tyres!
Please, these are basically the same as pool tires, which can be great for street, flat, vert, park, and basically riding around on the street, for the right rider. Have some frickin' fun! No sense of humor! I mean humour.
Don't make me laugh! I race downhill, and on my non-race bike (for practicing) I ran a Hookworm (a basically treadless tire) on the rear, and a swap thing on the front (a rather grippy tire) and was blasting down a mud-covered hill with no problem at all.
The amount of grip your bike has is also down to the rider, not just the bike.
These tires would be wicked for street/park riding, also, I see it being pretty fun for dirt jumping.
"world wonders why"
Well, let me tell you:
So you can run over Hello Kitty's face, over, and over, and over, and over, and over.
That makes me a little happier, realizing it.
That's exactly what I was thinking. This is probably the best one yet, for that reason!
2nd that
They should make a Hello Titty =)
grow up.
Don't hate.
I think Lance won the Tour on these babies.
hilarious. imagine the other racers. "Crap, I got beat by a guy sporting Hello Kitty tires"
I love 'em. Reminds me of over-developed schoolgirls in Shibuya. ;)
I... I'm really tempted to get these for my wife. She loves HK, and has a nice old cruiser for when the weather is warm.
As for being an unsafe tread pattern, that's just silly. On hard surfaces such as concrete and asphalt you want a smooth tread for maximum contact area and grip. It's only if you are riding on dirt/mud that you want knobbies. Don't believe me? Ask Sheldon (The Man) Brown himself.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tires.html#tread
Ya-know... back in the day, in the year 1986 when I use to be in the bicycle group STAR 86. Streetstyle'n Tricksters Are Rad and I was a Kick A$$ freestyler on my Redline RL-20 II. I bought a pair of tires with no treads on them. I don't know how many times I busted my A$$ riding on those tires. They are extremely hard to freestyle on, absolutely no grip on the road, if your tires were dusty, not dirty, I was always loosing ground contact constantly sliding all of the time. But hey they felt SMOOOTH! Why... because then had no treads!
Redline RL 20 II
http://www.singlespeedshop.com/oldschoolbmx/rl20_3.jpg
I am not knocking Mr. Sheldon Brown however my freestylen skills/experience tells me otherwise! He has his opinion and I have years of freestylen experience. I would style on a pair of Hello Kitty tiers anyday before I style on another pair of slicks!
And as for his comment on Hydroplaning. I don't remember learning any of that stuff in high school which he has posted on his website? If fact, whenever it rains and I am driving in the rain I get very aware that cars DO hydroplan at around 33mph or so and either I or somebody else could loose control. Seriously should I really be driving at 66 mph or greater while it is raining? Yes I do know the info is on airplanes. He should read the section on hydroplaning here!
http://www.smartmotorist.com/rai/rai.htm
btw, I still have my RL 20 II, cherrypicker anyone!
Next up, Hello Kitty condoms.
Or the infamous hello kitty dildo.
Granted, hello kitty is almost inexcusable, but I'm totally down with putting designs on tires. More ways to customizing my bike is A+ in my book.
These treads are indicative to slick tires used in summer (read:warmer or hot climates) the are obviously not intended for mountain trails or ice and snow conditions.
tread is completely irellivent on push bike tyres on tarmac - studies have shown that the average cyclist would have to be traveling at 143mph with 2" tyres for aquaplaning to be a problem, not quite so with cars or offroad :)
I can't wait to serve my Hello Kitty Overlord.
*gets on hands and knees while making the reverent purring sounds of submission*
I'll be the first to buy Hello Kitty contact lenses too. I said it first, please give me a cut of any profits.
Sometimes, I wish I was a girl, so I could buy this kinda stuff without looking like a douchebag, but does that make me a douchebag anyway? Whatever, either way, Hello Kitty pwns.
Hello Kitty mineral water ftw!
Hello Kitty: ROAD KILL EDITION
BWAHAHAHAHA roadkill edition - LOVE IT!!!! *makes note - must tell Kitty-obsessed gf that one when I get these....*
"mmmmmmmmmoooooooommmmmmm! where's my kerroppi helmet?
"mmmmmmmmmoooooooommmmmmm! where's my kerroppi helmet?
Engadget, you should TOTALLY start up EngadgetKITTY or something like that where you blog all things hello kitty ..... there is certianly enough material out there.
How much is Hello Kitty paying you guys?? HUH??
Can we get a Hello Kitty free RSS Feed... Hello Kitty fanbois! :-P
Dude, let some air out and paint your walls.
Former RL20-II riders represent! Loved that ride.
Oh yeah, when I do the occasional show, the Cherrypicker still kills.
Engadget with the Old Meme, once again.
They are a step far to be called Engadgetchan.
Road kill?
OMG HELLO KITTY IS GOD LOL NEXT THING yOU KNOW "HELLO KITTY DATING SERVICE": BECAUSE YOU DESERVE A KITTY THAT SAYS HELLO
OLD NEWS! My friend has had this bike with the tread pattern for over a year.
There certainly are a lot of hydrodynamic and tire specialists in the house. All I know, from experience, is that here in new England, where we have a wide variety of ground conditions such as water, sand, leaves (sometimes dry, sometimes wet) during most of the year, that having at least a moderate amount of tread is very important for safety. Having a little tread that can help stop sideways motion rather than slide on top of sand, wet leaves, etc, is extremely helpful. Hydroplaning may or may not be an issue, but other than on perfectly clean cement or tar, in the dryest conditions, treadless tires are quite dangerous.
That being said, the HK faces do seem to have a bit of depth in the cut, so they may perform better than expected. I, however, do not want! :P
Dude, these things are like so 5 years ago! Sorry, no joke. These have been around forever.
I am still waiting for my Hello Kitty pantiliners.
Wow, 52 comments on a hello kitty post and almost all of them were made by dudes... what the world has come to...
Cute girls love Hello Kitty, dudes love cute girls. Hence... dudes know a lot more about Hello Kitty than you would imagine.
I used to work at a bike shop that sold the Hello Kitty cruiser by Nirve and these came stock on them. These tires are just a replacement tire from the same company.
Since it's a cruiser (not taken off-road) you don't need knobbies at all. I ride slicks on my road bikes year round, the rubber compound is what matters...now, if I could only get nirve to make a 700c version...
My wife has the Hello Kitty themed Nirve beach cruiser. These tires come on it. She loves the bike.