Years ago I did my thesis on early investigation into this material; essentially normal polyethylene is a z shaped, highly folded molecule, but the backbone is a pure covalent carbon-carbon bond, one of the (maybe the) strongest bond in nature. Ultra linear PE does what it says, it straightens out the z so all the load is directed down the bond and the tensile strength is therefore ridiculous. You may be familiar with this material from kite strings, squash or tennis racquet strings, high end rope, this sort of thing. It’s been a long time coming but now we can get it as spokes. It has a density of less than 1g/cm3 so it’s light as all shit too. Check it out:
Ultra linear PE (Dynema/Spectra) spokes
- Thread starter Changleen
- Start date
neat
Last edited:
They are literally the simplest hydrocarbon of all.Yes, but is there a hydrocarbon component?
Berd has been doing it for a while, but there were a few people that did it as a DIY and made their own. The hard part was getting an eyelet loop made that could be used with normal nipples. I think Berd threatened to sue MTBR because a few people figured out the process and posted it, it was a big DIY thread...then it disappeared.
wait, hydrogen AND carbon?
hold the phones, sounds like we got a real hydrocarbon here!
coupled with plastic rims I could see the whole system working better, IE: carbon rims make wheels feel like ass rammers, kite string spokes are likely to make an aluminum rim feel like a noodle....
But I'm assuming a pretty high elasticity....which goes to rims stressing beyond breaking
honestly though, that's kind of the same idea that both crank bros and mavic used: lighten up the spokes, put a heavier reliance on the rim, which if we're talking about rotational weight, aint it
hold the phones, sounds like we got a real hydrocarbon here!
coupled with plastic rims I could see the whole system working better, IE: carbon rims make wheels feel like ass rammers, kite string spokes are likely to make an aluminum rim feel like a noodle....
But I'm assuming a pretty high elasticity....which goes to rims stressing beyond breaking
honestly though, that's kind of the same idea that both crank bros and mavic used: lighten up the spokes, put a heavier reliance on the rim, which if we're talking about rotational weight, aint it
I could imagine if you were bigbrain and had a bit of time on your hands you could come up with a way to use a single piece of ‘string’ to lace the entire wheel just going through the rim and hub eyelets. You’d need to make sure the corners were nice and smooth though, the abrasive resistance is good but not awesome. However you’d be able to drop the extra metal of the nipple and hook interfaces. Would be even lighter.
The elasticity is very very low in tension (but slightly higher than steel IIRC).
Last edited:
Young’s modulus of spoke steel ~200GPa, (giga pascals) and ULPE is about 120GPa.
yeah some of us didn't need google, bro
I'd want to see some numbers for elasticity. Mostly exactly because we've done this before. The reason I posted what I did in this thread is because those are other examples of trying something similar. And where are we back to?.....mostly steel spokes, manipulated through diameter and taper, with some more expensive gucci shit through aluminum alloys. We come back to these things for reasons.
Those new spokes are a weaved fabric. No matter what they're made of, they're going to have some stretchy. Everyone always seems to focus on total failure when talking about strength but that's not the issue. Not with wheels.
seems like a good place to put this
I have 2 friends riding these spokes. They are both better jumpers than I am and they send decent sized things with these weird spokes. I can´t believe how light they are and how you tie little knots at the hub….. crazy when you get dropped by a guy on these….. doesn’t compute. The price is insane though….
There is also Pi Rope that do something similar.
pirope.net
PI ROPE – Leichte Laufräder aus Deutschland
pirope.net
"whoa bro you totally need to crochet a new wheel"
Hard to watch this video so full of unfounded claims and questionable logic. Seemed like a reiteration of marketing talking points.
“Rolling speed”
They considered $500 in spokes expensive, but a $2000 wheelset “a really affordable option.”
And bro speak.
“Rolling speed”
They considered $500 in spokes expensive, but a $2000 wheelset “a really affordable option.”
And bro speak.
Matter: The Tioga Tension Disc | BIKE Magazine
This time around, our subject is the Tioga Tension Disc, which Joe Parkin, and a great many other pros, rode right into the history books.
www.bikemag.com
You should have heard it when it went haulin ass by at a NORBA National under John Tomac.
those wheels were notorious. Notoriously poor. Looked cool though.
