Folding Bikes - The perfect 16-17" wheel??

Hi everyone,

14R got me going on his perfect bike idea, so I went out and bought Chris King hubs. Now, I have to decide what rim to wrap around them. I can use 349mm (Brompton), 355mm (Birdy), or 369mm (Moulton) rims. The question, then is which is the "best" (light but double walled) of these options? The Aeroheat?? The Alex DV16?

Thanks much in advance!!

By the way, sorry if this has been answered, but the one shortcoming of BikeForums is the search engine! So if anyone remembers a thread...

Velocity would probably be the best bet, but the Alex Folex 355 wheels are nice too.

I use the Aeroheats, but can't say which one is best, since I haven't used the other, and what determines 'best'?

Greenspeed do their own 349 rims (Sims) which are pretty good. Just a thought.

Thanks so much F&T and Jur! Of course, "Best" is highly subjective, but relatively light and double walled would be nice. So, I'll contact Greenspeed and try Velocity. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though Folex are sold in the US, but I could be wrong.

The easiest to get are Alex DV15s, which seem decent and are $15 or so.

The big advantae of 349s is that Stelvios made for them are folding, but the 355s and 369s are not.

Thanks again.

Hmmmm, that is a good question. Do others get the sense that there is a lot of variability in rim quality if you focus on big manufacturers like Velocity and Alex? There certainly is a lot of variability in rim availability across sizes.

How many spokes do your new hubs take?

PM124 ... do you like "skinny" tires? If so, the 349s probably offer the best tires out of the three. Schwalbe now makes a few tires for 355s now. Although as you point out, none of them are folding tires. What tires are available for the Moulton?

-G

What tires are available for the Moulton?

Stelvio and Bridgestone. Wolber and Continental 369s are no more.

Thanks InvisibleHand, I do like skinny tires. I'm using Stelvios on my 355 Alex DV15 rims now.

I bought the 32 hole variety thinking that I would use the Aeroheats, but now I'm not sure.

There is probably variability in design, the aluminum used, and thus strength and weight. But this information is just about impossible to find on the Internet. The Aeroheat is the only one with specs, and it is Width 24mm, ERD 325mm, Weight 270 grams.

Thanks again!

LWaB, Both the Birdy and Moulton use Alex DV16, do you have any opinion about them?

Perhaps you can lace only 16 spokes. For such a small wheel, that is plenty.

Perhaps you can lace only 16 spokes. For such a small wheel, that is plenty.

Thanks Jur. I'm a bit ignorant about these configurations. Do you mean skip every other hole on a 32H rim? Or are there 16H rims?

I just built a lightweight wheelset for my Swift; the front hub is an American Classic Micro58, 16 hole. I couldn't get a 16H rim, so I used a 32H Aeroheat rim and skipped every second hole. It would also be possible to lace them in a "paired spoke" config, skipping every second pair of holes. Even with 16 spokes, the spoke spacing at the rim is closer together compared to a 20-spoke 700c wheel which is common enough.

I don't know if I'm dicing with death leaving rim holes open, but wheels are enormously strong structures due to the inward pulling force exerted by the spokes. If rims dont fail at the valve hole, then they are not going to fail at unoccupied spoke holes either.

That sounds right, and small rims are much stronger than big ones. But it begs the question of why rims aren't drilled out. ;-)

The Micro58 seems to be a very lightweight and cost-effective hub (at least in the US), especially with the new bearing set in it. I had considered that one. Let us know how you like it a year down the line.

I was in a folding bike race recently, and a guy on a Swift dusted us all. I followed him at 30MPH for about 300 meters and then fizzled.

In this size, rim strength is rarely a problem. The problem is rim cracking (wearing thin or incorrect alloy/processing) or poor quality control (rough rim joins or poor bead diameter control). Pick a rim where the tyre fits tightly when installed (a run-flat ability) without being too hard to remove by hand (these requirements are not mutually exclusive).

pm124, BMX racing rims regularly used to be drilled out between the spokes (larger than valve holes) to reduce weight until people worked out that it reduced torsional stiffness significantly more than reducing rim wall thickness to acheive the same weight.