"psycholist" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:I was surfing cbike.com and came across two models of FSA (Full Speed Ahead) brand wheels (R200
and R400). Sketchy details available. They seemed like run-of-the-mill road wheels. I went to the
FSA website www.fullspeedahead.com to see if I could get more information. There were two
additional models -- R600 and R800. These were quite interesting. Each hub has three flanges ...
ones on each side where you'd expect, and one very large one right in the center. FSA promotes the
fact that 1/3 of the spokes come off this center flange and, therefore, are out of the wind.
Whatever.
They're VERY bizarre-looking.
I tried a Google search for anyone selling these things and/or for reviews. Came up empty.
So has anyone read or heard anything about these? Has anyone out there ridden them?
Bob C.
Dear Bob,
There's no real shelter from the wind for a spoke inside a wheel. The spokes themselves whip up
plenty of turbulence. That's why disk side-covers were invented. The whirling spokes are still
beating the air trapped inside the disk and whipping it up, but massive blasts of fresh air are not
being introduced to the spokes at high speed.
Even if the idea did work, a truly centered spoke might as well be cut in half for all the lateral
stability that it provides, so these wheels will be much flimsier side-to-side than normal wheels
with the same number of spokes.
And truing a wheel where a third of the spokes can't move the rim to either side doesn't
sound too easy.
Thanks for pointing out an amusing design.
Carl Fogel
