"These Japanese Engineers Invented $7,900 Bike Wheels" (Gokiso Hubs)
03-19-15, 12:29 PM
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"These Japanese Engineers Invented $7,900 Bike Wheels" (Gokiso Hubs)
I saw this article today, which was clearly full of bull**** and exagerations:
Japan's Kondo Brothers Invent $7,900 Bike Wheels - Bloomberg Business
But it lead me to this more interesting review of the hubs:
Gokiso Climber Hubs Review | CyclingTips
Japan's Kondo Brothers Invent $7,900 Bike Wheels - Bloomberg Business
But it lead me to this more interesting review of the hubs:
Gokiso Climber Hubs Review | CyclingTips
03-19-15, 12:42 PM
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It's been discussed here already.
03-19-15, 01:29 PM
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I get what they are trying to do. Two comments:
1) spinning a wheel with no load on it means absolutely nothing. Bicycle wheel bearings, relative to the rest of the bearing world, are very slow, with very large radial forces. With no load, seal drag dominates the equation, but means nothing once a radial load is applied. That their wheels take forever to wind down when they are spun means they are using very light contact seals. This would be suspect in real life where water and grit intrusion is the real problem.
2) The bearing suspension gimmick is made necessary by their choice of bearing design. Gross shocks are taken up by the tires on the wheel, so it won't help with this, contrary to their claims. What is actually going on is because of the large radial forces and their choice to use small bearing ball diameter, they are required to double up the bearings on each side (the other way to do this, chosen by most hub manufacturers, is to increase the bearing ball size). This creates an alignment problem: if the axis of the two bearings are offset, they will quite literally tear each other apart (which is why most hub manufacturers don't go this route). There are two ways of dealing with this. One is to make a precision shaft and design it with a lot of stiffness so it doesn't deflect much under load. The other is to keep the structure "flexy" (read "light") but pull all the strain away from the bearing supports by making another part of the shaft even more "flexy". Most hub companies choose the former. These people chose the latter. But there is no getting around the balls on the bottom side of the bearing taking a lot of load. Something has to resist the radial forces on the bearings, and by definition and design, these are the bearing balls opposing the load.
So... I choose "gimmick". All the supposed "good" qualities are because they spent hundreds or thousands per hub in machining features and tolerancing. To put this in perspective, a Shimano DA hub probably costs $20 to manufacture; most of that being material cost. It really is an advertisement for their precision machining business and engineering services more than an attempt at making a bike hub. They wanted a product they could show to potential customers that shows off their manufacturing services expertise.
1) spinning a wheel with no load on it means absolutely nothing. Bicycle wheel bearings, relative to the rest of the bearing world, are very slow, with very large radial forces. With no load, seal drag dominates the equation, but means nothing once a radial load is applied. That their wheels take forever to wind down when they are spun means they are using very light contact seals. This would be suspect in real life where water and grit intrusion is the real problem.
2) The bearing suspension gimmick is made necessary by their choice of bearing design. Gross shocks are taken up by the tires on the wheel, so it won't help with this, contrary to their claims. What is actually going on is because of the large radial forces and their choice to use small bearing ball diameter, they are required to double up the bearings on each side (the other way to do this, chosen by most hub manufacturers, is to increase the bearing ball size). This creates an alignment problem: if the axis of the two bearings are offset, they will quite literally tear each other apart (which is why most hub manufacturers don't go this route). There are two ways of dealing with this. One is to make a precision shaft and design it with a lot of stiffness so it doesn't deflect much under load. The other is to keep the structure "flexy" (read "light") but pull all the strain away from the bearing supports by making another part of the shaft even more "flexy". Most hub companies choose the former. These people chose the latter. But there is no getting around the balls on the bottom side of the bearing taking a lot of load. Something has to resist the radial forces on the bearings, and by definition and design, these are the bearing balls opposing the load.
So... I choose "gimmick". All the supposed "good" qualities are because they spent hundreds or thousands per hub in machining features and tolerancing. To put this in perspective, a Shimano DA hub probably costs $20 to manufacture; most of that being material cost. It really is an advertisement for their precision machining business and engineering services more than an attempt at making a bike hub. They wanted a product they could show to potential customers that shows off their manufacturing services expertise.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --the tiniest sprinter
Last edited by Brian Ratliff; 03-19-15 at 01:35 PM.
03-20-15, 05:52 PM
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Riding an $8k wheelset with Shimano Sora? That makes sense. Honestly, if you're going to spend a few thousand on wheels, it really makes more sense to go with a more reliable brand. I've only ever ridden ****ty wheels, so i wouldn't know, but i've only ever heard spectacular things about Lightweight. Seems more wise to go with something more tried and trued (no pun intended) at that kind of price point
03-21-15, 06:11 AM
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