Not sure TBH...I can see how they might be lighter if done very well, but I doubt they are.
Road wheels are generally quite heavy cause there's a lot of redundancy. As we all know from horror stories, full on lightweight racing wheels are susceptible to fatigue and crack. In fact all aluminium wheels are susceptible to fatigue and will ultimately fail, its just that road ones have so much redundancy built in that they generally corrode away or are otherwise disposed of first.
Steel doesn't necessarily have the fatigue issue and steel wire can be incredibly strong. You can afford to use super whazy high end steel for the wires cause its made by the kilometre for industry and is hence cheap.
The rim is easiest bit to optimise cause its a simple hoop of metal. Fatigue and other failures generally start around the corners of spokes etc, which wire wheels don't have.
So....just thinking off the cuff like... you probably could make a wire wheel which performed better than the stock cast ally one yeah. Doubt they have though.
If you really really want a high performance wheel you'd get a carbon one or a forged ally one and live with the fatigue issues.
My experience of spoked wheels is from dirt bikes and supermotos, supermoto wheels are usually lighter than alloy road wheels and stronger, also when they fail it's usually a couple of broken spokes rather than the whole wheel failing and the rims can be straightened (is this the correct term?) but the downside is that you usually have to run tubes, though BMW do make tubeless spoked rims.
Feck knows what the aerodynamic effect of running spoked wheels at over 150mph are though.
I doubt they’re lighter . My speed Twin is 10kg lighter than the Thruxton it is based on and half of that saving is achieved by using cast instead of spoked wheels
Last edited by Nidge on Wed Apr 07, 2021 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah as above you'd have to go to some effort to optimise a wire spoke wheel...at which point you might as well go to the effort of optimising a solid wheel, which is exactly what 'they' do. Do the Triumph spoked wheels have steel or aluminium rims?
KungFooBob wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 7:34 am
They look good, but they don't look like the type that allow use of tubeless tyres?
indeedy.
Assembled Wheel Set Includes:
Cognito Moto Front and Rear Hub
Excel Takasago Series Rims in Black (17×3.5F and 17×5.5R)
Stainless Steel Spokes and Nipples
Pre-Installed Bearings, Spacers, and Seals
Recommended for Installation:
Rim Strips
Radial Tire Tubes
New OEM Rotor Bolts (Yamaha specs to replace when removed)
Weight: 11.4lbs Front | 17.6lbs Rear
That XSR actually looks really smart, I like the little number boards and the seat (no idea where you put a number plate or tail lights) and painting the lower half of the tank black kind of hides the shape of it.
But what's that strange plastic box for on the frame near the headstock :p
