Someone 3D Printed a Working Airless Tire for a Mountain Bike

The Project

Berm Peak, a YouTuber focused on extreme biking and fabrication, decided to test whether a 3D-printed airless tire could survive real trail riding. His motivation was practical: punctures ruin rides, and he wanted to see if polymer mesh technology could be replicated on a desktop 3D printer.

The tire is printed from TPU. Berm Peak settled on an S-shaped spacing pattern between the tread and the wheel rim. The tire prints in sections, and each section joins to the next on the rim using a separate 3D-printed rim interface. The final assembly snaps onto a standard mountain bike wheel.

How It Rode

After several design iterations, Berm Peak took the neon-green airless tire onto extreme off-road trails. The tire held up surprisingly well. It absorbed impacts, maintained contact with the ground, and did not go flat. For a DIY project built in a home shop, that is a solid result.

The project does not solve every problem. TPU wears faster than rubber, and the mesh design sheds more plastic as it ages. The weight is also higher than a conventional tire with sealant. Those trade-offs mean this is not ready to replace your daily trail tire.

The Bigger Picture

Airless tires have been a promise for decades. Michelin and others have shown concept tires that never go flat, but none have reached mass production for consumer vehicles. On bicycles, sealant-filled tubes have already made punctures a minor inconvenience for most riders. Berm Peak's project is not going to disrupt that market.

It is still a fun proof of concept. The neon-green tire turned heads on the trail, and the build process shows what is possible when you combine flexible filament with a well-designed lattice structure. If nothing else, it is a reminder that 3D printing still produces some genuinely cool weekend projects.