Anybody remember aerospokes? You know, these wheels, they were kind of a triathlon staple of the 90s …
Well, somebody is now doing a new version, this time for gravel too. Not sure if there is a big functional advantage, but they do look kind of cool:
More info about these on bikerumor …
That’s gotta have some fun gear changes with 50T 1x ring up front and 42t in the back.
I do remember aerospokes, these ain’t them, and by a long shot. The old Aerospokes were injection molded wheels, with 5 spokes. Then they were bonded to an aluminum rim. These look pretty high tech, and it does not appear they are injection molded wheels…
How do I know about aerospokes, well they were my idea originally. I had a friend who was in the molding business, mostly car parts. We would talk from time to time, and I had thought that if you could injection mold a wheel, you can mass produce them in the millions, and reduce costs to virtually nothing. He ran with the idea, and I believe he made wheels for quite sometime, maybe still does. His name was Ed Giroux, I think around Michigan I think. Maybe someone here remembers him, or has more info on where the wheels finally ended up.
I liked them, raced on them for a couple seasons. They’re big problem was lateral stiffness and weight. But of course now we wouldn’t worry so much about a couple extra grams if they were actually more aero. I got the idea from BMX, I saw these cheap injected plastic wheels that were on all the bikes at the time, and thought why not race wheels for us???
These wheels look interesting, let a few hard core gravel/MTB riders beat them up first though…
He still sponsors some people in Michigan. A while ago he told me he uses Velocity rims. I’m thinking it was the Deep-V.
I do remember aerospokes, these ain’t them, and by a long shot. The old Aerospokes were injection molded wheels, with 5 spokes. Then they were bonded to an aluminum rim. These look pretty high tech, and it does not appear they are injection molded wheels…
How do I know about aerospokes, well they were my idea originally. I had a friend who was in the molding business, mostly car parts. We would talk from time to time, and I had thought that if you could injection mold a wheel, you can mass produce them in the millions, and reduce costs to virtually nothing. He ran with the idea, and I believe he made wheels for quite sometime, maybe still does. His name was Ed Giroux, I think around Michigan I think. Maybe someone here remembers him, or has more info on where the wheels finally ended up.
I liked them, raced on them for a couple seasons. They’re big problem was lateral stiffness and weight. But of course now we wouldn’t worry so much about a couple extra grams if they were actually more aero. I got the idea from BMX, I saw these cheap injected plastic wheels that were on all the bikes at the time, and thought why not race wheels for us???
These wheels look interesting, let a few hard core gravel/MTB riders beat them up first though…
Ed’s back with a new company, Encore. https://www.encorewheels.com/index.html
I do remember aerospokes, these ain’t them, and by a long shot. The old Aerospokes were injection molded wheels, with 5 spokes. Then they were bonded to an aluminum rim. These look pretty high tech, and it does not appear they are injection molded wheels…
How do I know about aerospokes, well they were my idea originally. I had a friend who was in the molding business, mostly car parts. We would talk from time to time, and I had thought that if you could injection mold a wheel, you can mass produce them in the millions, and reduce costs to virtually nothing. He ran with the idea, and I believe he made wheels for quite sometime, maybe still does. His name was Ed Giroux, I think around Michigan I think. Maybe someone here remembers him, or has more info on where the wheels finally ended up.
I liked them, raced on them for a couple seasons. They’re big problem was lateral stiffness and weight. But of course now we wouldn’t worry so much about a couple extra grams if they were actually more aero. I got the idea from BMX, I saw these cheap injected plastic wheels that were on all the bikes at the time, and thought why not race wheels for us???
These wheels look interesting, let a few hard core gravel/MTB riders beat them up first though…
Ed’s back with a new company, Encore. https://www.encorewheels.com/index.html
Why would the rim on this not be a bit deeper for a greater aero benefit? Or would it make them too hard to handle on the front given the additional surface on the 5 spokes.
No thru-axle option for the disc brake wheels, so they won’t sell very many of those.
Ed’s back with a new company, Encore. https://www.encorewheels.com/index.html
Thanks, figured someone here would know what Ed was up to. And the wheels look nice, still a little heavy, but like he says, you can train and race on them without much worry. I would love to give them a try again, it appears he has figured out the stiffness problem(but looks like no 650c). I bet they go good on flat rolling courses. And to dev as to the deep dish, probably two things. More weight of course on the outside of the wheel, and of course you make one mold here, so probably choose the best all round wheel, not the one for particular conditions. With that weight, a deep front would probably just track too hard, the same as a disc I would guess…
I had one of the originals (6spd freewheel). Great cool looking bombproof wheel. Lots of fixie hipsters still covet them.
Wow, the encore wheels seem unreal.
$400 for a made in USA carbon/alloy 5-spoke 1 piece wheel? Hard to believe. But, if yes, l might pick some up …
These are injection molded with short chopped carbon fiber mixed into the plastic. It’s not carbon fiber woven fabric or UD as we are accustomed to seeing in high-end cycling wheels.
The weave pattern on the surface of the wheel must be just a molded-in texture to make it look like carbon fiber.
Also I would be really surprised if they did any kind of real aero development or testing on it. They just made something that looked kinda like a five spoke track wheel, but in a way that they could injection mold it super cheap.
They still look cool, but to me still seem expensive. I’d like to see a true cheapo injection molded plastic wheel like BMX bikes had. If it were disc brake only, the tolerances for wheel trueness could be relaxed. A plastic rim bed should be able to handle the lower pressures of tubeless wheels. Have a cartridge hub that could be popped in. I think there was a modular hub in a recent slowtwitch article. Sell the wheel (minus hub) for fifty bucks, and if it gets really bent, just chuck it and put on another (well not chuck it, send it back or something evironmentally conscious haha).
I don’t know if you know, monty, why they never got dirt cheap as you envisioned, if it was just an economy of scale thing?
.