The design has since been refined, and the commercial version of the product was officially unveiled last month. It's called Procore, and we had a chance to see how it works at Interbike 2014.

First of all, with regular mountain bike tires, there's a bit of a compromise.

If the air pressure is too high, the tire doesn't have as wide or compliant of a gripping footprint on the ground, plus it bounces wildly off of things like roots and rocks. If the pressure is too low, however, pinch flats can occur when riding over those same obstacles, and tubeless tires can even get "burped" right off the rim. As a result, most cyclists keep their tires at a somewhere-in-between pressure that isn't ideal for either grip or protection.