Bike Wheels - Chrome Bicycle wheel
Ride smart and ride hard on bike wheels designed for your bike. Learn about bicycle wheels sizing, "lacing", maintenance check points and more.
Find, Compare, and Buy Bike Wheels in Seconds
Getting out on the road, exercising while the wind and sights rush by demands that your bike wheels complement your frame, your weight, and your riding and training style. While sport differences such as road biking versus mountain biking call for wholly different bicycle wheels and tires, you can increase performance and know that your equipment will help you dig out of random "jams" as certainly occurs when bikers hit the trail or road.
Spokes And "Lacing" Bike Wheels For Performance And Safety
Most performance problems occur due to manufacturer built bike wheels which utilize the wrong spoke "lacing" system. What you experience on the bike is a "softening" in control, especially as you corner. A back wheel will give rather than stay true to your line of approach. Since your bike is continuously transferring leg power or torque into forward motion, your bicycle wheels become the transfer medium where transfer strength is expressed.
Except for some high speed oval track racing bikes, your typical touring or mountain bike will have wire wheels, or spokes. Bike wheels vary but the spoke range can include 24s, 28s, 32s, 36s or even 48s in a typical wheel blank. The question next is how to organize this number of spokes around your bike wheel rim in order to maximize torque transfer so that you get speed, distance and safety at all times.
You've no doubt experienced the "loose spoke" and wobbly bike wheel experience. What happens is that one or several spokes either loosen from within the hub, generally on opposite sides of the lacing pattern. Losing spoke tension immediately creates a distortion in the bicycle wheel torque transfer. In other words, your up-and-down pedaling which seeks to convert spinning into rapid forward movement is now "dampened" due to a less-than-round or true wheel. You get increased rolling resistance, your MPHs drop, and you might be heading for a crash as well, if your speed intensifies and your bike wheel engineering integrity suddenly plummets.
Getting a strong rear bike wheel is critical to your overall performance and safety. Your best bet is make sure that your factory or custom bike wheels meet your frame size, adjust for your body weight and fitness, along with the sort of riding and training you typically do. When in doubt over-build your bicycle wheels, erring on the side of "cross lacing" spoke patterns when your wheel is built. What this requires when seeking a strong rear bicycle wheel is a differing spoke lacing pattern on each side of your rear wheel.
Bike wheel technicians apply considerable trigonometry to calculating the vertical and horizontal displacement of spokes "laced" to the hub on opposite sides of your wheel.
Copyright 2004-2008 S&T US LLC
©2004-2008 Wise4Living | Contact | Advertising Info | Legal | Privacy | Directory |
