Spokeless bike prototype

http://www.dezeen.com/2008/04/21/monowheel-by-ben-wilson/

that motorbike is so nice!

YouTube- Interlaken 2006 - Mono-roue

umm... dont spokes create a shize load of turbulence and slow the bike? Isn't that the thinking behind disc wheels?

Probably still creates a load of drag, and weighs a shit load, just trying to be objective.

On a separate note, anyone on here met Ben Wilson? Bought a frame off him a couple of years ago, bloody nice bloke.

umm... dont spokes create a shize load of turbulence and slow the bike? Isn't that the thinking behind disc wheels?

Probably still creates a load of drag, and weighs a shit load, just trying to be objective.

I'm pretty sure that spokeless wheel will cause more tubulance though.

That's better :)

mine not come out???? For fuck sakes....

amidoinitrite?

Crap idea IMO

and i can see SPOKES in the front wheel... surley it would be easier to run discs front and rear. IMHO.

maybe a floating saddle is next?

The point of this kind of undergrad university design project is not to do something that is necessary, marketable or even truly innovatative (what ever is...). It is to demonstrate the ability to think through a problem (which could arbitrarily be "design a bike wheel and drivetrain without traditional hub/spokes"), develop a design which is viable and actually fabricate it. Anybody who has done anything like this will appreciate how much work goes in. I bet they had a ton of fun, and looks like an impressive end product. Chapeau to them.

The point of this kind of undergrad university design project is not to do something that is necessary, marketable or even truly innovatative (what ever is...). It is to demonstrate the ability to think through a problem (which could arbitrarily be "design a bike wheel and drivetrain without traditional hub/spokes"), develop a design which is viable and actually fabricate it. Anybody who has done anything like this will appreciate how much work goes in. I bet they had a ton of fun, and looks like an impressive end product. Chapeau to them.

If it's not needed, marketable or innovatative, it's a bit of a shit design surely?

I can drink lots of strawberry milkshake, make myself puke, throw up and freeze it so now I have a pink lumpy frisbee that smells like strawberry, stale milk and stomach lining. Not gonna be a great design though is it?

A viable design? I very much doubt that.

Had fun making it? I'm sure most of the time they were ripping their hair out trying to get around all of the silly little problems projects like this throw up.

Looks impressive? I guess that's down to personal opinion but to me it looks terrible.

I'd call it experimentation or research that could lead to other innovations or designs in the future. A very worthwhile pursuit...

It is a design as they identified a problem (of sorts) and solved it.

UNDER 45lb!! wohwohwooweewoohaa /borat

and ball bearings?! wow!

The motorbike spokless = win aesthetically. A total ball ache from an engineering point of view (tyre change? chain tension adjustment?), though.

@ MMCarthy - you missed my point. If the brief was "redesign a bicycle rear wheel and drivetrain with no spokes or central hub", its a pretty fookin good effort. The fact it doesn't need redesigning in the first place (and I agree it doesn't) is neither here nor there. It made a good undergrad project, contributed in some way to the great scientific knowledge bank, and I bet they all got flying colours.

Viable = it can be done; QED. And by impressive, I mean for a bunch of students, with a year or two at most to arrive at this from a blank sheet of paper, with probably a fairly poxy budget. If Trek or Specialized put this out as a prototype, of course I'd be flaming the hell out of it.

Billy lane was the originator of hubless chops, but he used a bastardised helicopter drive chain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHoHAmrEbrk&feature=related

The wheel had to be significantly reinforced to take the forces put through it, and inevitably it is more show than go, although Billy always rode his bikes hard.

Mike Pruss then took it further when he used friction drive on this beast. He later went on to build a hubless friction drive, with a hubless front , but i can find the pics

          ![](http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/3/l_feaac21c2fc7262f43cf6a2b4b06ca1d.jpg)                                              Want to email somebody a link to this photo?             





          ![](http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/26/l_9e202c991d173e9d8613e268e8b1fb14.jpg)

If it's not needed, marketable or innovatative, it's a bit of a shit design surely?

I can drink lots of strawberry milkshake, make myself puke, throw up and freeze it so now I have a pink lumpy frisbee that smells like strawberry, stale milk and stomach lining. Not gonna be a great design though is it?

A viable design? I very much doubt that.

Had fun making it? I'm sure most of the time they were ripping their hair out trying to get around all of the silly little problems projects like this throw up.

Looks impressive? I guess that's down to personal opinion but to me it looks terrible.

Let me guess, you don't work within the design industry... The point of such projects is NOT to make a fully commercially viable end-product. The PROCESS of LEARNING and creative problem solving is what counts. Jesusfucksake.

I'd say there are some fair points from both camps. Yes we need to explore things. But the inventor of the tensioned-spoke wheel, it has to be said, was on to a bloody good thing. It has revolutionised (heh) how we move about, what with it's low mass for such great tensile strength.
It's hard to beat, being such a near-perfect 'solution' (shudder).

Let me guess, you don't work within the design industry... The point of such projects is NOT to make a fully commercially viable end-product. The PROCESS of LEARNING and creative problem solving is what counts. Jesusfucksake.

QFT. I'm doing a degree in vehicle design and it shits me right up when people say things like 'blah blah it doesn't work in the real world etc'. If you don't want to live in a world where people experiment with things that sometimes fail (or even experiment with things that will almost certainly fail) then you can go back and live in a cave and suck lichen off of rocks.

Sorry, but for me, it's a giant leap backwards in every aspect. I think it's best for us to agree to disagree.

I'm all for the evolution of current products, even occasionally there's a brand new product that takes the world by storm, and I encourage that.

However, people making things worse in every aspect just beause it looks nice to a few people? Not my cup of tea.