Talk:Bicycle wheel

To do

• Strength to weight ratio
• construction
  • rim
  • hub

Extlink: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/wheel1.html

--Christopherlin 21:44, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why is there no mention of disc wheels? Rather major piece missing from the article. Mathmo 11:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

By all means, please add a mention. -AndrewDressel 14:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Tufo Tubular

Does the Tufo 'tubular' cited as an example of a tubular without an inner tube truly constitute a tubular tire? If a tubular tire is defined as 'any tire that is designed to work on a tubular rim' It would not work. If tubular tire is defined as 'any tire that is stitched closed to form a torus' then this tire almost works. The reference refers to it as a 'tubeless road' and 'tubular clincher' tire. I am interested by the tire but inclined not to cite it as a reference that a tubular tire doesn't contain an inner tube. For the moment the article claims that a tubular 'almost always has an inner tube'. This seems like a fair compromise until we resolve this. Ender8282 (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Do not confuse Tufo's 'tubular clincher' tires, designed for clincher rims, with their pure 'tubular' tires, designed for tubular rims. Perhaps the current definition is not worded in the best way possible. It seems that the salient aspect of 'tubular' is that the tire cross section is in the form of a tube, and then the Tufo tubulars definitely fit. This VeloNews article and this Road Cycling article have no trouble calling Tufos tubulars. The slangy 'sew-ups' would be no weirder than 'clipless pedals' or 'threadless stems'. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The Road Cycling article still talks about a tubular-clincher. The VeloNews article is most definately NOT talking about a tubular-clincher hybrid. This most certainly proves the point that 'not all tubulars have a seperate innertube'. I might prefer that the VeloNews article were used instead of the current bike-eu article only because it is refering to what I understand a tubular tire to be. However the Bike-eu and the Road Cycling articles provide a picture that explins what is going on far better than VeloNews does. Ender8282 (talk) 16:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The construction of a tubular tire is not the point of this article. Since this article references the tubular tyres article we don't need to go into construction details here. I have changed the aricle to discuss the interface between tire and rim contrasting it with a traditional clincher. I am not totally happy with the summary but maybe someone else can clean it up a little. Lets leave the tubeless tubular for the tubular tire page. Ender8282 (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Wooden rims

Caption to Image:Bamboobike.jpg claims that the rims are wooden... I doubt this and there is no mention of it in the image summary. They look like rusted steel to me. Have messaged the image uploaded but consider this a request for any other input. bad·monkey _{talk to the {:()} :: 05:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the wooden bit is actualy the tyre. If there were no metal rim as well, then how would the metal spokes be fixed to the rim securely enough perform well?Gregorydavid 13:10, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

In fact it is highly likely that the rims are made from wood. Wood was the most popular material for rims around that time and metal rims only became popular (on safeties) with the rise of rim brakes (which this bicycle does not have). The tires are certainly not wood, they are pneumatic rubber types, the valves are visible coming out of the rims. Will.law 17:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wood definitely have been used for making rims. LDHan 21:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact that wood has been used for rims is not in question; merely what this picture is of. If you look around where the rim meets the tyre (which is most certainly not wood!), you can see shine and reflections which give it the appearance of metal to me. bad·monkey _{talk to the {:()} :: 03:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not that clear from the photo, but it could be tarnished metal. LDHan 09:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

As the image uploader I cannot solve the problem definately because the pic was taken a few years ago, very far from where I live and with a poor camera resolution. The only thing I can tell is that if there had been sthg unusual about the wheels, i would probably have noticed that and included it in the image summary. So it seems the wheels were made as they mostly are today - steel and rubber. other clues are what seem to be reflections on the rims and possible technological problems with joining wood with obviously metal spokes. Personally, I would opt for removing the example from the article until some Wikipedian from Holešovice in Prague goes for a nice walk to the nearby Technological Museum and finds out the Truth ;-) Mohylek 13:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is the image again for another look -

Bicycle with rims made of wood (1896)

Gregorydavid 13:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong wheel, no wood on these rims. Gregorydavid 13:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Reaction to inertia

concerns about rotational inertia of bicycle wheels are vastly overstated--the inertia of all bicycle wheels is negligible compared to the mass of the rider.

Can you back this up with any data or references. Have you ridden wheels with low and high moments? There _is_ a noticeable difference when accelerating and climbing.
Ender8282 19:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

See the article at http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/articles/9662.0.html

I am not sure that I believe everything that it says but I do agree with some of it.

Ender8282 19:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The bit about rotational inertia being insignificant compared with the riders mass should be removed. Higher rotational inertia of wheels definitely can be easily felt by a rider and makes a significant difference in races such as critirums where you might accelerate from 30 kph to well over 50 kph more than 200 times (four corners X 50 laps) in little more than two hours. It can make more difference to the final outcome in a given race than the difference in the mass of two representative riders providing that for comparsion the two riders are nearly equal in ability and fitness (as they might well be in any given sanctioned race with very competitive racers), but one is a heavier rider. This is because in such a race a lot of the time you must stay very close to the rider in front of you and if the rider in front of you is the rider of nearly equal ability (but different weight) but now he can accelerate out of the corners using less energy than he did before when compared to you (when you were very nearly equal) due to lighter wheels and rims than you, you will have less effort left compared to him for that final long extremely hard effort when right at the very last the rotational inertia of the wheels can once again make a very important difference, even if it is only a fraction of an inch. The trade off here occurs when the heavier rider begins to experience 'squirrly' behavior or outright failure with rims that are too light and flex in hard cornering or sprints. I think the point for removing the claim that less rotational inertia is not really signifigant or is overstated when compared to the riders mass is a bit harder to prove for the case when climbing, but it looks like the 'number crunchers' have done so. 32.162.209.15 (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Rims with no holes for spokes?

At time of writing, the article says:

The number of spoke holes on the rim normally matches the number of spoke holes in the hub. Some unusual rim designs have no holes for spokes, for example Campagnolo road rims and the Velocity Zvino MTB rims.

Huh - Campagnolo rims (presumably, the rims used on Campy's own wheels) don't have spoke holes? Both my sets do! Which wheels don't use holes for spokes? If it is just a few designs, we should probably say "...for example some Campagnolo road rims...". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WikianJim (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

Anyone? WikianJim 19:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's some info on the Zvino [[1]] & [[2]]. I think saying that they don't have holes is misleading though. The rim still has holes, just in a separate section of the rim. AFAIK, campagnolo rims all have spoke/nipple holes. Just not in the 2nd layer of aluminum so you don't have to use rim tape. Will.law 14:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Right, I get this now! On a double wall rim they have holes for the nipples to poke through, but not on the bit that touches the innertube/tubular. WikianJim 16:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are more companies than just velocity and campy that make whls without holes in the outer wall. Mavic (CrossMax, XM819 rims, Kyrsium & R-SYS) Shimano (DA road tubeless whls) Falcrum (I am not sure but since they are asian made campagnolo whls I suspect) It is a little hard deciding what brands/models to list and which not to list. I suspect that Mavic was first to market but I am not sure. Do we want to try to make a list of all of them or should we choose one or two as references? Is it possible to have a NPOV if we list some but not others? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ender8282 (talk • contribs) 04:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Clincher is not quite the right term

Clincher is a specific type of tire-rim design that is obsolete. What is usually referred to today as a "clincher" is in fact a wire-on or wire-type design. Clinchers have a bead that grips a hooked edge on the rim when the tire is under pressure. Wire-type simply rely on wire tension to offset the pressure and the tire is held on the rim by being slightly smaller than the rim.

Reference: Sharp, Archibald, "Bicycles & Tricycles, An Elementary Treatise on Their Design and Construction", Longmans, Green, 1896 pp495-497 (Reprinted MIT Press, 1979).
Michael Daly 06:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Sheldon Brown seems to agree, although he may be using the same original source: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_cl.html.

Probably due to a shortage of sources on such topics :). Bicycling magazine made a big deal about this about 30 years ago, but the naming conventions don't seem to have been affected. Michael Daly 16:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

ISO 8090 (“Cycles – Glossary of terms”) lists the following types of rims along with drawings:

• straight-sided rim
• hook bead rim
• sprint rim; adhesive bond rim
• Westwood rim
• double chamber crochet rim
• single chamber crochet rim

There is no mention of “clincher”. Markus Kuhn (talk) 22:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The article discusses different methods of measuring beaded-edge and wired-edge tires, but does not define the distinction between a bead and a wire or say which is more common in which contexts. Seems to me, in an encyclopedia intended for ordinary people to read, the latter points are more important. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Lead section and definition

Sorry again about the revert, but the recent change had a lot of points to discuss

1. It lost two alternate name "sew-up" and "single" that I think are very useful in an encyclopedia article.
2. It added "hooks" to the definition of the alternate tire type commonly, and apparently erroniously, refered as clincher. See the discussion section just above this one to see that "hooks" do not define clincher.
3. It tosses out a reference without replacing it as discussed above.

-AndrewDressel (talk) 21:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't read the comments first. Okay, I get part of it. Let me try to restore what you had. -AndrewDressel (talk) 21:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning it up. I knew what I was trying to say but it didn't come out very well. Ender8282 (talk) 23:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

rolling resistance

I lifted this paragraph from the article as it's just a bunch of unsourced claims. I suppose it should either be sourced and replaced, or left out.

Rolling resistance also is reduced with increasing tire pressure, although the practical benefits become small at pressures significantly above 120 psi for the average bicycle rider. Thinner bicycle tires are lighter and have less wind resistance than wider tires, however, wider tires offer better traction, comfort, and stability.

26-inch wheels: Is this germane? NPOV?

Can someone tell me if (and why) the mention of UST here? It seems irrelevant because UST rims are still made around the same 26" standard as non-UST rims, and this section of the article is talking about the size of the rim, right? HuntClubJoe (talk) 21:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Do hubs hang from the wheel?

The physics is a bit too complex to me, but it seems that it's all a matter of point of view. It's the reduction of tention on the lower spokes that allows the (almost unchanged) tention on the upper spokes to bear the load. I imagine I am over simplifying this. In any case the article seems to be very unclear on the matter, and I would love to see it improved, but I am unsure if my understanding is accurate.--Keithonearth (talk) 03:30, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Bicycle wheel has a couple of concise sentences with plenty of references. -AndrewDressel (talk) 17:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the two articles should be merged, but I would like to see just one copy of this topic with all the best references. Arguably, it belongs here, in the more general article, but all the sources are specific to bicycle wheels. I'm tempted to suggest that both these aritlce link to a new, specific article, but I don't think there is enough material to warrent a stand-alone article on the subject. Anyone have a preference or an even better idea? -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The current consensus among sources seems to be that under load, the few spokes at the bottom reduce tension and the rest only slightly increase tension. Jobst Brandt and Ian somebody interprets this to mean that the hub stands on the few spokes directly below it. Tom Fine interprets this to mean that the hub hangs from the rim. It seems to me that we should state something like the first sentence as fact with multiple references, and then quote specific authors semantic interpretations as exactly that. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the best place to put the references/discution would be either, I kind of think not that many people would be reading the Wire wheels page, and way more will be reading the bicycle wheel page. Would it be possible to keep the discusion brief enough (Like two Sentences) that redundancy wouldn't be too tragic? Putting that aside for now, the way you phrase it above, seems to me to be by far the best I've heard so far, and is way better than on the article page.--Keithonearth (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Having seen some flame wars on the the subject, I'd suggest stating something like the first sentence as the classic or conventional view, then that some using FEA argue the contrary, and finally that the argument hinges (buckles?) on whether a reduction in tension implies structural support. Nice work on the subheadings, btw. NebY (talk) 09:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

To say the tension changes as a fact, then the two interpretation (as you say Andrew) should avoid an edit war, no? How about: "Under load, the few spokes at the bottom reduce tension and the rest only slightly increase tension. This has been interprated as either meaning that the hub is supported by the spokes under it, (ref,ref) or that the hub "hangs" from the rim (ref). I think that fits with NebY's suggestion too. The main thing as far as I'm concerned it to remove the unattributed quote. --Keithonearth (talk) 20:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for your help. -AndrewDressel (talk) 12:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. (didn't see the change till just now) Great job!--Keithonearth (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not want to start an edit war, but there is less controversy about this than you seem to imply by your attempt at even-handedness. You might consider the following thought experiment when deciding which viewpoint to prefer. If the hub hangs from the upper spokes, then you might expect that decreasing the tension in the bottom spokes to zero would not matter much. --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Someone might expect that, but they would be incorrect. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

This also suggests that you ought to be able to set the spoke tension really low. --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It might suggest that to someone, but they would also incorrect. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

From the hanging point of view, you should need only enough combined tension in the upper spokes to support the load. --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I see nothing in the "hanging point of view" that limits spoke tension in this way. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe there is good evidence in the references that the bottom spokes must stay in tension or the wheel will fail. Brandt devotes the first part of his book to explaining the idea that the bottom spokes support the load; see pages 6-32. Consider this quote from p 28: "Wheel Collapse ... a bicycle landing from a sufficiently high jump, could untension its bottom spokes on impact and leave its rim laterally unsupported. At this moment the wheel is unstable and will collapse to the side." He also says earlier, on p 10, "Of course the wheel is not supported by the bottom spokes only. Without the rest of the spokes, the bottom ones would have no tension. Standing, in this case, means that the spokes at the bottom are the ones that change stress; they are being shortened and respond structurally as rigid columns. They are rigid as long as they remain tensioned (my emphasis)." --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The issue is exactly his assertion that the bottom spokes "respond structurally as rigid columns". They simply do not, by any definition of "rigid column" that I can find. They are not in compression unless the wheel fails, and the way that most spoke nipples simply press towards the hub against a hole in the rim, or Euler's buckling criteria, depending on how one prefers to look at it, prevents them from ever being in more than a tiny fraction of the compressive force that would be required to support the loads that most wire wheels support. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Most people would agree, based on their own experience, that a wire will not behave as a rigid column when in compression. --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe I follow your point here. In the previous sentence, you appear to be supporting Brandt's position, but you seem to be opposing it in this sentence. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I really think you could have a more enlightening discussion of this subject in the article. --AJim (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe that citing sources on both sides of the argument and trying to explain their positions is about enlightened as this is going to get. I don't believe there is any controversy about what actually happens as wire wheels support a load. Instead, the controversy lies simply in what words we use to describe it. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Forester

I've taken out the addition, provided below, with the edit comment that "the reference is fine, but we don't need the details."

Forester demonstrated this by direct measurement of change in spoke length as the wheel rotated under load. Spoke length decreased between the 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions with a maximum decrease of about 0.004 inch at 6 o'clock. The reduction in downward pull on the hub, calculated from the dimensions of the spokes, closely equaled the load carried.

What I mean is that the testing methodologies of none of the other sources are discusses. Readers looking for such details can check the sources directly. Also, details such as the investigator's name and the measured displacement without the total spoke length or other details necessary to interpret the number seem out of place. -AndrewDressel (talk) 03:10, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Maximum load

From the Analysis for design of spoked bicycle wheels article, I think that the maximum load is around 490N (=?kg) (more load is possible by increasing the spokes. Also, from what I read at wikipedia, the load can be increased by reducing the wheel size. Having some formula's for this would be useful to integrate to the article.

Generally, the maximum load for the tyre is far less, around 145kg per tyre (or 290 kg for a person sitting on a bicycle since it has 2 wheels, see http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-320799.html ) 91.182.215.56 (talk) 09:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a little hard to come by. The maximum load will be a function of the rim material and cross section; the spoke material, size, and number; and the wheel size. Good luck finding a formula for that. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

giving it the greatest strength to weight ratio of any man-made structure?

Read this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/eqovp/til_that_the_tensioned_spoke_bicycle_wheel_has/c1a64yp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.59.11.138 (talk) 08:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly how do you measure the size?

I don't understand how to measure the the diameter of the tire or rim, from the way it is described in the article. Both says smth with "where the tire sits", but exactly where is that? The tire and rim has an overlap if measured from the center of the circle and out. It needs a more precise/explicit explanation, or perhaps a diagram.

84.238.47.3 (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)