Weights of wheel types...

[gavinnz]

Ok...
say you need a set of wheels of certian rim sizes....
...say 3.00 17 front and 4.00 17 rear.

Cast aluminum would be heavier than cast magnesium, which in turn is heavier than carbon fibre....

My question is this.... if you used the best components, light weight machined hubs, best aluminum rims, best spokes and nipples.... where would a wire wheel come in that weight list??

Regards
Gavin

[BASS-TREBLE]

Cant help much mate, but if you imagine 3 hollow carbon spokes that are less than 8 inches long, you need pretty light wire spokes to come close to that, remembering that there are heaps of them

[F5 Dave]

Can I answer your question like this. Gyroscopic force is important as well as overall weight. To run tyres on spoked wheels they in general need innertubes. One of which means running tubes in tyres that aren't designed for them (if you want modern tyres) which will affect temperature they run at & can wear the tubes in fast riding (some are quite rough on the inside).

But back to the first point; if you weigh a tube they are about 400g for a small one & that weight is all near the circumference of the wheel.

[AllanB]

Moto Guzzi and BMW both produced spoke wheels that do not require tubes - the spokes attach to the outside of the rims. look cool too.

It's a interesting question, alloy rims are light, I suspect a spoke alloy wheel would be lighter than a alloy one. But having picked up a carbon fibre wheel at Pit Lane a while back I think they would easily win.

[ajw_888]

weights from an aprilia site, 5.5 R and 3.5 F

stock rims on 08 sxv550 rear 26 pds / front 17 pds with pirelli scorpion sync tires.

marchesini rims with the stock 207 tires rear 21 pds / front 15 pds.

total weight savings of 5 rear 2 front 7 pds total.

The BST site will give you carbon weights.


Needless to say the standard spokes are heavy as, they also include a 1 kg tube, Alpinas are tubeless and everything is much lighter, near the weight of the marchesinis.


All expensive options new.