ravenmore

Someone turned me on to them in another one of my threads. Fantastic tech in these wheels. Great interview with the owner here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9pjSP97PNc

ravenmore

Not a fan of the decals though

cyclebycle13

These have been discussed at length on weightweenies.

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/fo...adfiber+wheels

apparently they're pretty good.

liquefied

John McCain is making bike wheels now?

awesomejack

I like the decals, it would go well with Red.

And I don't know about you guys, but this looks like the future of wheels. Like the move from steel to aluminum frames, I think all serious racing bikes wheels in the future will be made from all carbon fiber. Lighter, stiffer, stronger

Inertianinja

i'm extremely interested in these. i love the idea of using technology to make something completely new.

fly:yes/land:no

usually my intuition regarding bike gear is pretty congruous with the pulse of mainstream cyclists. that said, the fanfare these wheels have gotten is polar opposite of how i anticipated they would be received. quite frankly, i think they look like something made by a vocational school student for a class project; rife with creativity but lacking refinement and real world applicability. a majority of the ww and stwitch crowed seem to be enamored with the things.

the spokes are bonded (glued) to the wheel and hub. obviously this is a boon for weight purposes, but doesn't inspire confidence in sourcing repair parts should a spoke ribbon break. unless i misunderstand the process by which the spokes are attached, the entire wheel would need to be unbonded, the offending piece removed, and rebonded with a replacement piece. translation - a busted spoke means you replace the entire wheel.

it is tough because, as mentioned in that video, mad fiber has to literally reinvent the wheel. mavic and spinergy have attempted similar endeavors and it didn't end well for either of them. good for ric, max and russ for going headlong though. i really hope they can come up with a modular version.

M_FactorX19

So what's the price on these bad boys ?

DRietz

$2,600 non-ceramic.

patentcad

Reasonable price for such exotic light and aero hoops.

fly:yes/land:no

^^^ target market
<<< not target market

MrTuner1970

That was my thought also whenever I first saw these several months ago. Perhaps the spokes don't break (like other spokes) under normal use. I dunno really. I'd guess they're designed so that they'd never break under normal use. In a crash, though, I can see the spokes snapping. For racing, riders wanting every advantage and having them provided for them would be swell. For fat old me, I'd never spin them fast enough to warrant their purchase.

I'd be somewhat concerned about the bonding process. Hopefully they have that figured out so there are zero mistakes. If so, it'll probably work OK. Having the wheel stay true forever would be nice. But, again, it's all in the bonding ....

MarkWW

The main thing that turns me off is that paired spoke front. From what I remember, Ric used to be adamantly against paired spoke wheels. I wonder what made him change his opinion.

patentcad

OK, I take it back.

nealjoslyn

Those look pretty cool to me. It is interesting to see new ways people are coming up with to use carbon fiber closer to its maximum potential. If they are as sturdy and stiff as he says they are, I think we are looking at the future of bike wheels here.

kudude

are these that much different than HED3's?

rydaddy

If I can't fix it, I ain't riding it.

milliron

I'm a fan.

chadteck

The video says that these spokes spread the stress out across a much larger section of the rim, so I doubt paired spokes are as much of a concern as with traditional spokes.

Significantly lighter probably slightly less aero, but just a guess.

FogVilleLad

There's a comparison aerodynamic drag graph on this page: https://www.madfiber.com/aerodynamics-article . Some of the weight weenies crowd criticized its performance at low-to-mid yaw angles. I have no idea what that means.

nealjoslyn

A low yaw angle would be like riding straight with no wind, or into a headwind. A higher yaw angle would be introducing a cross wind. According to their website, these wheels (I'm not sure why) performed really well with high yaw angles, up to 30%. They perform nearly as well (almost no difference) as a leading brand aero rim at low yaw angles. All the stuff on their website is very interesting if you're a engineering nerd like me.

FogVilleLad

OK, understood. Still not sure why some of the ww crowd criticized the wheels, based on that graph.

davids0507

Well, who knows what wheel the blue curve is, there could be better ones in standard use.

The truing thing is really interesting to me. Carbon fiber is amazing.

I was brainstorming how they might replace a spoke. Assuming there's a simpler way to do it than replacing the entire wheel, there would have to be a few steps: 1. collapse the hub, removing tension from the spokes, 2. open up the rim to get at the bonding surface 3. remove the broken spoke, 4. bond the replacement spoke, 5. close the wheel, 6. extend the hub, reestablishing tension.

Steps 2 and 3 seem difficult, and step 1 needs to be impossible through daily wear and tear as well. Maybe they use special bonding agents in certain places (like between spoke and rim, or on the hub) that allow them to take the pieces apart without damaging the wheel.

rollin

Thoughts?

ravenmore

On the WW site they mention that the bonding process they use is the same that is used in military aircraft. In fact they also say that some of their engineers come from Boeing. According to the test I've been reading about, despite their extreme low weight, they are actually stronger than a lot of conventional wheels. They reinvented the wheel from the material up with 21st century technology, and the results are kind of jaw dropping. At least to me.

Yeah, they're not cheap, but they are still a third the price of their competition.