Hi folks, figured I'd post these here. This Hi-E wheelset is hanging on a Teledyne Titan on display at River City Bicycles in Portland, OR. These might be of special interest because they appear to have a slightly different construction type than most of the other rims.




In my collection I've got a set of the early 36h hubs, low flange front and high flange rear, with the stickers instead of engraving. 120 spaced. The front was radially laced and the rear was radial on the non-drive side, kinda neat.

(One of the stickers is upside down so looks like I'm stuck with a left-hand drivetrain lol)

And I just recently got myself a 28h front hub for a 1988 titanium bike that I'm slowly building up as a lightweight build. Now I need a 28h rear hub, and really light rims (I'm a small gal). Thinking about Mavic Argent 7s. Or, heck, if I ever found a pair of Hi-E rims, well that would really be something...

back in those days, I built up a front wheel with the standard Hi-E front hub and one of those tubular rims. I recall it being very light, but I didn't have a lot to compare it with. Still, a rim that was made from aluminum sheet, folded over, and then riveted at the joint didn't inspire the same confidence as a Super Chamion model 58 clincher rim! I wasn't able to ride tubulars much, and ended up getting rid of the rim, which I sorta regret now. I'm still using the hub, though, and it seems to be doing fine.

The Hi-E sales literature in the early 90's claimed that the weight was 250 grams, and had the disclaimer "failure is safe, but may occur at less than rated loads". Harlan was an engineer, so I wonder what the rated load was supposed to mean? The load at which the spokes all ripped out of the rim simultaneously??



Steve in Peoria

Funny that you noted the Hi-E sticker being upside down on your rear hub - note the photo above shows the inner jockey wheel cage plate of the RD is also mounted upside down

DD

Yes, they are made differently from other rims. Most rims start as straight extrusions that are cut to length, rolled onto a circle, and pinned or welded closed. Hi-E rims start as aluminum sheet, cut to width, folded into a box shape, seam riveted, rolled into a circle and pinned closed.

The original front skewers had dangerously failure-prone aluminum axles. Sometimes weight weenieness is overdone.

When did the skewers use aluminum shafts ("axles"?) ??

I' bought mine in the 70's, so maybe they changed since then?
This is what I've got now: They have stainless shafts, or some other alloy that doesn't seem to corrode.



Looking at the marketing literature from the 90's, it does look like Harlan offered a version with an aluminum shaft. I stand corrected!
That does seem particularly ill advised.



Steve in Peoria

I worked at Bikecology 1972 to 1974 when Hi-E stuff first came out. They had a big aluminum shaft recall back then. This was the first wave of weight weenie wars, and drilium was the rage, as well.

Certainly! But these hi-e rims also seem to have a different rivet pattern than most other Hi-E rims as well.

Both aluminum shaft and steel shaft skewers were offered at the same time.
And a front wheel track version with two wrench flats.
I have an aluminum front with the wing rod. A display item.

Rich Hammond (aka Captain America) broke one on his Geoffrey Butler in 1974. wasted the fork. he was quite pleased that the Builder could make him a replacement, essentially identical even the same color.

Early HI-E Cosmopolitan
Harland worked in the avaition industry and they like to rivet everything. He gave this Lady Cosmopolitan to my friend and I have been slowly getting it back into riding condition.

hey do you know if the hubs went back in to reproduction?
many thanks
rog

Hmph! Nobody else has a pair of Hi-E pedals?



I also had a pair of Hi-E wheels back in the day. The rear had hi-lo flanges and the drive side had more spokes. Different.

not that i am aware of.

there was an attempt to assemble some seats from remaining inventory at one time.
the inventory shifted between hands 2? 3? Times. Then nada.

I gave up following the trail.

the pedals were an interesting idea, actually all of his ideas were interesting
the all aluminum front skewer was downright scary.

I keep forgetting about the aluminum skewers, i.e. with an aluminum shaft, but that is a rather extreme design. Harlan did seem to like to push things to the limit, and possibly beyond. I wonder who sold him liability insurance?
I still have some old Hi-E sales literature, and one of them does mention aluminum QR skewers...




I do still own and use a couple of first generation skewers with the steel shafts. They always struck me as about the most minimalist design that would still be safe. By comparison, the Campy Record QR of that era was a boat anchor.... albeit a boat anchor that was going to securely hold the hub in the dropouts under any circumstance.


Steve in Peoria

Hi Folks--


I have just joined this forum to share a bit of information about Hi-E. As a young teenager, I came to own a Raleigh Competition in 1973. Darn, it was quite an upgrade from my Schwinn Varsity (what a nasty, iron tank!). With the Raleigh, I was the only kid in my hometown who had sew-up tires, and took a lot of pride in it. I made wonderful use of the bike -- riding became among the most important things in my life. Things would change soon, as more kids were discovering light European road bikes. Athletically, you might say that Raleigh Competition saved my life.


Anyway, I was a big kid, 200 pounds, and I road hard enough that my legs got very strong. I found I was breaking a lot of spokes on the right side of my rear wheel. I didn't know why. Going up a steep hill near home, I stripped the threads off my rear hub. I remember being puzzled -- it was like losing a clutch! I was pedaling, but I just stopped moving. Maybe something had been defective in the threads, I don't know. But it was the motivation I had to get a new rear wheel. Somehow I found out about Hi-E Engineering, and I ordered one with a Hi-Lo hub. The spokes were radial on the low side (left) and 3-cross on the high side (right). But also, there were twice as many spokes on the right side, as I recall. I still have the wheel, and I'll post photographs of it.


The result was that I never broke a spoke again. I had to replace a stretched chain occasionally, but the wheel sure worked! I also bought a slow-release skewer for my stock front wheel. I think it's one with an aluminum rod as has been discussed with some concern in this thread. I never had a problem with it. I went on to attend a snotty New England boarding school where I discovered some of my classmates knew much more about bicycles than I did. (And now that I think about it, it was probably some kid there that turned me on to Hi-E.) But as far as I remember, I never saw anyone else with a Hi-Lo rear wheel like mine, then or since. I always took pride in it!


It came to pass that I set an "under 16 years" leg-press record at the school that was never broken, as far as I know, until they retired the "Universal Gym" machine about ten years later, and (darn it), they threw the associated record-board away! So go one's Glory Days! ;-)


Maybe about ten years ago, I happened to visit a museum associated with MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hanging from the ceiling in one of the rooms is/was a bicycle (or, at least, related parts) with distinctive Hi-E components. I can't remember why the equipment was in the museum -- it might have been part of a prototype human-powered aircraft for the MIT Daedalus Project. I would be surprised if the display is not still present at the museum.


Cheers!

Nostalgically,

--John W. Briggs (and I shall return here soon with photos).

Maybe the bike hanging at the MIT museum was from the class where Klein got his design for his first bikes. If I had to guess, maybe Harriet Fell's bike, which was introduced as evidence when Klein sued Cannondale. Harriet Fell was Sheldon Brown's wife, and is a very interesting person.

Harlan had a special rim for those hubs. I would think your best bet might be to find a 24-hole rim and just skip every other hole on the 24-hole side, not that s4-hole rims are much easier to find.

I've got one of the nylon wingnut skewers, but I think the shaft is steel. I also have a 36-hole Hi-Lo hub that, thankfully, has 18 holes in each flange. I recall just a few people running Hi-E stuff in the 1970s. The hub bearings didn't seem to be too durable, though I ran a set of hubs on a Masi for a few years and only picked up a small amount of play. You have to remove the spokes and pull off the flanges to change the bearings, which you don't need to do with Phil Wood hubs. The rims were considered suitable only for time trial use among the riders in my area. Since vertical dropouts were rare in those days, the skewers were only used in the front. I always liked the minimalist look of the metal cone skewers, though you were screwed if the peg came out on the road and you flatted, unless you had something that would fit in the hole and then you likely wrecked the skewer. I had a strong distaste for the waterbottle cage the very first time I saw it. I hated the hose clamp mounts and the things seemed creaky.

BTW, the rims don't have a seam in the common sense. The sheet is simply overlapped across the spoke holes and riveted together.

Jim Cunningham displayed a Graftek bike with Hi-E hubs at a semi-recent Classic Rendezvous gathering. Looking closely at my photos, I see that he also had a hi-lo hub where the right flange has twice the spokes as the left. The lacing pattern isn't the usual one... the right flange has two trailing spokes, two leading spokes, two trailing spokes, etc. The rim is an AVA tubular, and I don't notice any offset to the spoke holes.
I wonder how long it took to figure out how to make that lacing pattern work?



here's a high resolution version.

Steve in Peoria

That wheel would stay on for me until the first hill I had to stand up on. At least the Teledyne had vertical dropouts.

John,

Welcome to BF and specifically to C&V. You will find we are an agreeable bunch of vintage bike enthusiasts. Work on your posts and bring them above ten in order to post pictures. We love pictures!

Are you certain you stripped the hub threads for mounting your freewheel? My guess is that the pawls failed in your freewheel instead. Do you remember which brand freewheel? My guess is that it would have been a Regina or Atom.

I have a set of HiE hubs with Faimme tubular rims on my '71 Paramount P-13. My rear hub is the small flange version, so not the exotic one you have.

Forgive if inappropriate, but on C&V for sale forum, I've listed a batch of Hi-E stuff for a friend who took on the remains of a bike collection from a long time friend and one time Hi-E distributor who passed away.

Here is a complete bike from Ŕəđďįť.