hi I'm Mike ever heard the saying don't reinvent the wheel well it turns out
that might have been the worst advice ever given as today we do just that and
look at the future of the tire and reinvent how we roll on our wyoming life
this is our Wyoming life
my family and I came to the ranch few years ago to help
my father-in-law and his failing health since he passed away we've been running
it learning as we go and sharing with you as we explore the ranch life and
escape the ordinary the world is fast paced things are constantly changing we
really have no control over analyze technology moves around us and sometimes
it's easy to get overwhelmed that is one of the things that draws people to the
ranch life it seems easygoing things never change and some things
don't each and every year we deal with the same large milestones calving
branding paying market harvests and eventually the selling of calves and
winter feeding for the herd those are the things that I hope never change on
the ranch there are benchmarks and each season we finish gives you a sense of
accomplishment and pride in your work but just like any other business
there are many support structures that make sure that those milestones are able
to be completed we don't have a staff here on the ranch so those departments
are paid up by Aaron and myself we're our own Secretary's assistants and
payroll departments HR consists of me complaining to a cow who really doesn't
care much of any way and the R&D department on the ranch is only what we
can invent and produce on our own and in our own shop while technology on the
ranch may seem at a standstill it's the little things that have changed how we
do our job in the 1940s ranches saw their first non
horse-drawn implements as tractors move in to take their place in fact by the
70s horses were no longer used on the ranch at all when Gilbert discovered
three and four wheelers and although it was the end of an era a romantic notion
on the ranch it enabled us to work more efficiently faster and with less
downtime especially when you're running the place on your own now it's been a
while since we've seen a big innovation like that one on the ranch something
that's changed how we do things and made things easier and saved us money in the
long run one of the biggest expenses on the ranch
is travel since we replace the horses with tractors and other motorized
vehicles that expense can literally be traced to where the rubber meets the
road on the ranch between all of our tractors Baylor's ATVs trucks and
trailers and anything else with a wheel we have over 80 tires that need constant
upkeep tire pressures wear and tear and sometimes even just rot from the lack of
use can cause a serious hiccup in our operation so it makes sense that over
the past year I've gotten to our friends at Michelin a tire manufacturer whose us
offices are based in Greenville South Carolina if you looked at our budget on
the ranch tires and their maintenance is a huge part of it we're constantly
repairing and replacing tires over the life of the Gator for example we've went
through five set of tires and that's just for a little bit over 14,000 miles
but now changes are coming to the tire industry and how farms and ranches can
deal with tires their upkeep and their replacement for the past 20 years
Michelin has been working to innovate not only how many things can be done
here on the ranch but how the entire world looks at tires this right here is
at wheel tire now it's unlike any tire ever I've ever seen recently I got a
chance to visit the Taweel factory in Greenville and see exactly how these
tires are built
what the heck what the heck is what the heck is this oh there we go okay this is
a this is a nondisclosure agreement and yeah I signed it before I went in the
factory so I can't actually show you how they're made but luckily we have a set
of tools right here in the shop and in all reality you don't have to know how a
tire is put together you just have to know it's gonna work I've been out doing
chores this morning in the Bobcat cleaning barns we're moving a retaining
wall and working at cleaning up the dump all of these work sites are dangerous in
the barns you can easily get stuck while landscaping you can run over a piece of
concrete breaking down the side walls of your tires and the dump well it's a
minefield of nails and sharp materials all waiting for soft rubber of a tire to
puncture and ruin your day the Bobcat wall a very useful tool on the ranch is
the most prone to tire problems because of the work it does downtime is
inevitable and downtime costs money a single Bobcat tire can cost up to $300
and when you build a tire budget that can cover almost a hundred tires on the
ranch we begin looking at cost per hour on some tires our calculations I ran to
figure that for every 1,000 hours we're gonna have to replace the tires on the
skid steer we budget about two thousand dollars for that or two dollars per tire
our cost that's pretty high but we want to make sure we have ourselves covered
but what if there were a way to cut that $2 per hour
cost in half or maybe even a third that's where the Tweel's come into play
and michelin has been letting us try these Tweel SSL's on our bobcat
man I wish it was that easy Tweedles way around 250 pounds of piece
and while the old Bob count tires are air filled and easy to move around these
things are a bit more labor-intensive but wheels also stand about an inch
higher than my stock tires that shouldn't cause too much of an issue but
we'll see
all the tires on we can get a look at how these Tweel's work
the tires are attached to the machine with an inner hub that hub is attached
to the actual treads with a number of ribs but folks these spokes are what
support the weight of the machine but not in the way you may think they do or
at least at least I didn't think for me it's almost upside down the machine
actually hangs from the spokes you can see that on these spokes the spokes on
the bottom of the tire they're bending they're giving way to the weight of the
Machine and tappable the spokes on the top of the tire they're stretched tight
with an incredible amount of tension on them that in turn gives you a bit of
suspension unless of course you're working in the frigid cold right now
with the temperature below freezing these tyres have no give as the ride is
almost excruciating over frozen cow pies but if you take it slow it gets better
then I can tell you when I come back I will be avoiding this field of landmines
back at the cow barn we can compare those air filled tires that we ran
earlier to the Newt wheels air filled tires do allow a little bit more
traction in this situation the ground is frozen and very slippery inside the barn
where it's thawed were not able to get the same push into the barn with wheels
this is probably also due to the weather and the freezing temperatures the rubber
on the Tweel's is extremely hard which means it's gonna last but it's also not
as pliable in this weather leading to some slipping outside the barn I can't
really see or feel much difference between the Tweel's and the air-filled
tires each hold their own just fine although Tweel's seem to have a bit more
traction here and they are controlling any sign slip better than the pneumatic
tires keeping me on the side of the hill a little bit better
our other chores are repeated also as we take more out of the retaining wall
around the farmhouse which will feather out and actually replace with more slope
law in this spring the blocks popped free with the same amount of effort as
before but again the tires do seem to give less not squashing down from the
weight of the work and while driving over obstacles the twills still are not
flexing that much in the cold even after driving for about an hour there are
certain advantages to the Tweel's which are obvious and maybe the most obvious
that might be seen at the dump where we continue to move material around to pile
up and be removed the dump on most ranches is an area where few love to
work with machinery because the danger of losing tires but now with the Tweel's
we can concentrate on cleaning this area up once and for all and for that I'm
extremely happy
all in all I'm pretty impressed with the Taweel tires and not only because
they're available for skid steers but also they can be fitted to a number of
zero turn mowers side-by-sides and even ATVs tires like these may just be the
future of tires and someday you might even see them rolling down the highway
the price tag is what's going to limit you seeing them everywhere at least for
a little while as they're pretty expensive to manufacture I said that I
couldn't tell you anything about what I saw in the factory but I'll tell you
this as long as you don't tell too many people right now it takes days to make
one of these tires and they can cost you anywhere from three to four times the
price of a traditional tire of course they last a lot longer and if you're in
a situation like we are with a skid steer where we're going to be going
through tires rate of up to four a year it might be worthwhile to take a look
and see how Tweel's can eventually save you money in the long run I am looking
extremely looking forward to continuing to test these tires on our skin steer
the weather's gonna warm up and I'm sure just like the airfield tears these will
perform differently and that is really something to look forward to I of course
want to thank Michelin for allowing us to test these tires they aren't paying
us anything to do so in fact I'm really impressed that they told me too that
they expect me to be honest and unbiased so that's what they're gonna get good or
bad the tires they do turn heads I saw that people going down the highway they
look cool and so far they're getting the job done our goal this year it sounds
bad but it's to break them so subscribe and help me as we explore the ranch life
and really escape the ordinary have a great week
and thanks for joining me in our wyoming life