The announcement this month that Dunlop has returned to manufacturing bike tires made me realize just how long some of these tire companies have been going. John Boyd Dunlop didn’t invent the pneumatic rubber tire but he quickly saw its potential for bicycles when he made some for his son’s tricycle in 1887. As a veterinarian in Belfast, Dunlop used rubber sheet in his practice and made the tires by cutting and sewing together strips of the sheet into tubes that he wrapped in canvas before gluing to the wheel rims. Very soon afterwards, he persuaded a local cycle racer, Willie Hume, to use his tires at an event in Belfast. When Hume won, the demand for Dunlop’s tires was immediate. Soon afterwards, Dunlop took out a patent and set up a company with the President of the Irish Cyclists Association.
Dunlop didn’t make a fortune as his patent was invalidated after it was later realized another Briton, Robert William Thomson, had patented pneumatic tires in 1845. Thompson’s invention preceded that of the motor car and the bicycle but he could not persuade the conservative carriage manufacturers of the day to use pneumatic tires. However, by the end of the century, automobile and bicycle manufacturers were open to new technology and tire companies were quickly established both in Europe and America.
Ironically, it was only after Dunlop sold out his interest in the company he founded that it was renamed in 1900 to honour him. In a similar manner, an American tire company was named to honour a pioneer in rubber development, Charles Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanization, a process of adding sulphur to stabilize sticky natural rubber. Before Goodyear, rubber had very few industrial applications even though it had been used by the ancient Mayans for balls and toys. Goodyear, the tire company, has also recently returned to making bicycle tires after a long period of concentrating solely on motor vehicle tires.
Initially bicycle tires were simply stuck onto the wheel rims like the so-called “Tubs” used until recently for racing applications. However, punctures in these tires were difficult to repair, losing riders significant time in long distance cycle races that were by then becoming popular. To speed up puncture repair, Michelin developed the glue-less clincher tire in 1891. With a wire bead, the clincher tire could be removed and refitted allowing the inner tube to be repaired. The design was demonstrated on the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race that year and adopted for motor car tires in 1895.
Other European companies already established by then were Continental (1871) that had been making solid rubber tires in Hanover, Hutchison (1853) that had made rubber treated fabrics in France and tires by 1890, and Pirelli (1872) making rubber goods in Milan and then bike tires in 1894. Vredestein (1909) started to make cycle tires in the Netherlands in 1910.
While tubeless tires have only recently made their way onto road bikes, B.F Goodrich developed them for cars immediately after the Second World War, some eighty years ago. The demand for rubber in the War was exhausting all natural supplies so an artificial “Butyl” rubber was developed. Butyl rubber proved to be more durable and had very low gas permeability. B.F. Goodrich realized these properties would make tubeless tire practical. However, the cycling world continued with latex that was lighter and more supple. Advances like the introduction of TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) inner tubes tires a decade ago by the Austrian company Tubolito further slowed the adoption of tubeless cycling tires. Interestingly, it was B.F Goderich again who invented Thermoplastic polyurethane back in 1959.
When you look at the tires ridden by the current professional teams (}ref), half of the manufacturers have been around for over a century and even the “newest” company, TUFO is 35 years old. Sadly, neither Dunlop or Goodyear has made it to the list yet.
| # | Manufacturer | Teams | Established |
| 1 | Continental | 21 | 1871 Germany |
| 2 | Vittoria | 14 | 1953 Italy |
| 3 | Schwalbe | 10 | 1973 Germany |
| 4 | Pirelli | 8 | 1872 Italy |
| 5 | Specialized | 3 | 1974 USA |
| 6 | TUFO | 3 | 1991 Czech Republic |
| 7 | Hutchinson | 2 | 1853 France |
| 8 | Michelin | 2 | 1891 France |
| 9 | Maxxis | 1 | 1967 Taiwan |
| 10 | Vredestein | 1 | 1909 Netherlands |
