Yet another April Fool's joke?

 This is just insane...2.0?

We thought April Fool's jokes were over but no...

The "Scope Atmoz – Tire pressure control system" has been announced and claims are being made it'll be used in Sunday's Paris-Roubaix. As they say "You can't make s__t like this up!" and they're right! Some part of this contraption must be electronically-controlled even if the pressurizing of the air is not - otherwise the UCI would not allow it? 

Zio Lorenzo would suggest it be banned anyway, just like electronic shifting. Back when Zio penned this in 2009 (scroll down about halfway) he warned that allowing battery power to do ANYTHING would be a slippery-slope to gawd-knows-what...and this is an example of gawd-knows-what, in addition to the hidden motors not discovered until 2015.

C'mon...$4K for a gizmo so you can raise and lower the pressure in your bike's tires simply by pushing a button? Zio doubts this contraption's gonna even be used on the cobbled roads of Paris-Roubaix*. It'll be more like the Rockshox suspension fork mounted on the winning bike back in 1992. While lots of hype went around from that win, only years later did we find out the rider, Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle had the fork lockout activated during the entire race, making it little more than a much bulkier version of the fork used on the rest of the competitor's machines....but of course garnering a lot of marketing-mojo in the process. 

The bike industry tried hard however, but in the end the gizmos never caught-on in a big-profit way. Check back a few years from now to see if Zio's prediction this tire-pressure thing will go the way of Rockshox at Paris-Roubaix came true. 

Meanwhile, set your tire pressure before you ride. Check HERE for some guidelines and then read THIS to understand most of the so-called advantages are theoretical vs real.

*Update: This gizmo wasn't even mounted on the team's bikes in the race after all. Despite all the hype about road tubeless, many observers thought there were more flat tires than normal in the race. The race winner rode what looked like the same make/model bike he rides in most races with maybe the wider-than-usual 30mm tires run at a relatively low pressure (and an extra wrap of bar tape) the only real changes for the Queen of the Classics, though he and others on his team still had punctures.