wooden track rims

[yeehawfactor]

who are the issimo-s of wooden track rims? looking for some for a track bike, oddly enough.

[jerk]

who are the issimo-s of wooden track rims? looking for some for a track bike, oddly enough.


set the way back machine for 1935... seriously though, ask round. he knows some nut job who makes'em. the front may not match the rear in profile but the japanese tourists will dig it.

jerk

[11.4]

Depends on just how historical you want to be. Calfee probably has (or is working on) a bamboo tubular rim, for example. Wood rims came in two varieties -- wood filled alloy and all-wood. Scheeren Weltmeisters were the class act for 20 years and are probably the only wood rims that command a high price today. (Someone correct me if I didn't get enough vowels in there.) Nisi, Fiamme, Weinmann and a few other manufacturers had their own versions for a while, although the Scheeren Weltmeisters were the most popular by far (note that there were other Scheeren models that were generally lower-grade rims).

Wood rims disappeared as aluminum alloys got better and spokes got better. They were a good solution for low spoke tension and aluminum rims that taco'd at the slightest bump. They were also one reason why track speeds weren't higher. You couldn't ride a steep track at speed on these rims without them wobbling like crazy, because the tension was pretty low. The tracks were often pretty bad back then -- not exactly a modern gym floor, but rather like the old floors in an industrial building with lots of gaps and bumps (and that's when you had a wooden track -- those here who complain about American tracks would be happy if they'd seen most of the tracks back then -- it was like watching films of Charly Gaul climbing the graveled roads of the Izoard).

I guess I'd wonder why you're going to wooden rims. There are lots of very nifty early alloy rims without going to wood, and you can actually build them. I've built a few Weltmeisters and other wood track rims and they can be a real pain. It's all touch-and-feel because everything you knew about regular spoke tension gets put aside, and you're almost guaranteed that you won't like the wheels as much as alloy rims. Heck, they weren't even really all that light.

[saab2000]

I did not know that. I have a friend who has a pair of wooden rims hanging in his basement. He lives in a different dimension than the rest of us and has never used a computer (literally) and so I cannot send him this. He keeps making noise about building those things up and I always wondered if they are worth anything other than talking about over beer. Now I know.

I know that if I were getting into track racing now I would get the most aero track wheels I could find. I don't know what they would be, but I would guess some of the Zipps or Mavics or Campagnolo track wheels would be the ones.

I wouldn't screw around with anything but go-fast stuff for today's track racing.