On 6/6/2020 11:37 AM, Andy wrote:
On Saturday, June 6, 2020 at 9:50:04 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Saturday, June 6, 2020 at 5:22:25 AM UTC-7, Andy wrote:
On Friday, June 5, 2020 at 6:27:19 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 7:16:29 PM UTC-7, Andy wrote:
I saw a Trek bike with some pretty neat rims.

They had far fewer spokes than most bikes.

Are they stronger and stretch less?

Can you buy just the rim for another brand of mountain bike.(the front rim)

Thanks.

Yes you can but you have to buy the correct hubs and spokes. It is generally easier to buy the entire wheel from Trek.

Thanks.

I found this.

Andy

Rims are designed, built and drilled for a specific number of spokes. The engineering that goes into the rim thickness, profile, and use case depends in part on the number of spokes.

I've seen a pair of 96 spoke wheels (which was build for a lowrider and was mostly for show)
I've owned a 48 spoke rear wheel on a touring/racing tandem- two 90+ kilogram riders need extra load support
I ride a 36 spoke rear on my road bike, because I value reliability.

On the other end, lower spoke count wheels exist but they tend to be built on special spokes.

16 spoke front wheels are common on road-racing bikes.
Spinergy wheels had 8 carbon "flats" functioning as spokes.
Some fancy wheels have 4, 3, or even 2 spokes, but they're a lot more complex than the conventional metal wire spokes we're used to.

There are disk wheels made out of one piece of carbon fibre (this is not wheels with covers over normal spokes) These might be construed as one single spoke, as wide as the wheel is around. But that's getting extreme and expensive.

Why? The lighter your bike, the faster it is. Removing spokes saves weight (but the remaining spokes have more work to do, sometimes requiring to be thicker negating weight savings.)

The fewer spokes on your wheels, the less disturbed the airflow gets as you ride. 32 spokes would cut the air twice as often as a 16 spoke front wheel.

Thinner spokes disturb the air less, and bladed/aerofoil shaped spokes are even better than round ones.

In general the problems with aerodynamics of wheels are minor and indetectable unless you're a professional TT rider.

What is TT?

Andy


Time Trial.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971