Berd PolyLight Spokes. Silly-light Polymer Spokes

[nooneline]

I used to ride with Kyle, one of the two guys behind Berd spokes - he was my leadout man's roommate. I forget exactly how they started investigating using this material for spokes, but they did several years of development and testing before even building a website and telling people about them. I think even before they did that, they had a major euro pro team asking them for demo wheels built with Berd spokes!

I remember picking up a traditionally-laced deep carbon wheelset that he had built with his spokes and it was shockingly light.

[jumphigher]

I think this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time, very innovative.

[Clancy]

Originally Posted by jumphigher

I think this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time, very innovative.

Not sure if I’m there with you, can’t get past the aesthetics. Took me years to get use to sloping downtubes.

Comes in black? Maybe a little more palatable.

But, very innovative and I would imagine will lead to more advanced and refined technology.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by MaraudingWalrus

I weighed the complete wheel before and after, only change being spokes. 60g less /20 spokes = 3g.



Eh, no particular reason beyond that generally radially laced wheels are heads out; these spokes are considerably thicker than a regular spoke, so I also didn't want to run into any clearance issues either, this way is a smidge slimmer than heads in.

Well it ain't pretty, is it? I've dealt with fiber-flite, titanium and those things in the wheels with fiber spokes, can't remember name...or whatever they were...kinda convinced me just stainless steel wire spokes more better. I'd be curious to hear truing goods and others and also how the resulting wheel rides. 'Seems' like a pretty complicated answer to a pretty simple question. What 'outrageous' claims from manufacturer?

[MaraudingWalrus]

I'm still pretty amazed by picking up this wheel.


This same customer has a light wheelset I built for them a while back (Kinlin XR200 to extralite hubs. I think if I rebuild those with these spokes, which is on out agenda for the future...we should get sub-1000g (or damned close) for an aluminum clincher wheelset...

[cp43]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Well it ain't pretty, is it? I've dealt with fiber-flite, titanium and those things in the wheels with fiber spokes, can't remember name...or whatever they were...kinda convinced me just stainless steel wire spokes more better. I'd be curious to hear truing goods and others and also how the resulting wheel rides. 'Seems' like a pretty complicated answer to a pretty simple question. What 'outrageous' claims from manufacturer?

The manufacturer website is here: http://www.berdspokes.com/

I only skimmed it, but nothing seemed too crazy to me.

[bmeryman]

Originally Posted by cp43

The manufacturer website is here: http://www.berdspokes.com/

I only skimmed it, but nothing seemed too crazy to me.

I spoke with Brad there. He was very reasonable in explaining things as well. They're light and I'm very tempted to try. They've built some crazy light fatbike wheels with the HED carbon rims. Helps being right down the road in MN.

[KarlC]

Originally Posted by Clancy

Not sure if I’m there with you, can’t get past the aesthetics. Took me years to get use to sloping downtubes.

Comes in black? Maybe a little more palatable.

But, very innovative and I would imagine will lead to more advanced and refined technology.

I still have issues with all these road bike frames wanting to look like Mt bikes.

Yes these spokes in black would be 100% better

[notsew]

Wow, pretty cool. Seems like a less than elegant solution for the hub end. I was imagining they would loop around the hub hole or something... but I guess that actually wouldn't work very well.

And I love that the blue locktite is in a red container. You'd think they could come to an agreement with Permatex, them having the red in a blue container sure isn't better (actually worse!)

[staggerwing]

Originally Posted by KarlC

I still have issues with all these road bike frames wanting to look like Mt bikes.

Yes these spokes in black would be 100% better

I didn't see anything to confirm, but I'm guessing those are woven from Spectra fiber. Sorry, white only.

https://www.honeywell-spectra.com/products/fibers/

[wallymann]

how do you keep such flexible spokes from winding-up?

edit: "padded pliers to hold onto the spoke to prevent twisting"

the end result is like tomac's tioga tension disc w/o the disc!

[mt2u77]

Cool. I always like to see people trying new stuff, but I'd want to see a lot more data than "weight" and "pull strength" before jumping on board (the info available on their website). I'm open to some type of braided spoke performing better than a steel spoke, but a lot more goes into it than weight and strength.

How 'bout elastic modulus, fatigue life, UV resistance, impact/abrasion resistance, water/chemical resistance? Maybe some accelerated life test data from actual wheels. Aesthetics of the capture rods aside, I'm guessing a braided white spoke will be very difficult to clean.

Basically, I'm open and optimistic about these spokes, but the company could do a lot more to build my confidence if indeed they have years of test data under their belt.

[nooneline]

Originally Posted by notsew

Wow, pretty cool. Seems like a less than elegant solution for the hub end. I was imagining they would loop around the hub hole or something... but I guess that actually wouldn't work very well.

And I love that the blue locktite is in a red container. You'd think they could come to an agreement with Permatex, them having the red in a blue container sure isn't better (actually worse!)

They used to loop through the hub hole (pull loop through the hole, and then insert most of the spoke through the spoke loop) - the loop-and-rod approach in this thread is new to me. Not sure why they changed.

[parallelfish]

Originally Posted by nooneline

They used to loop through the hub hole (pull loop through the hole, and then insert most of the spoke through the spoke loop) - the loop-and-rod approach in this thread is new to me. Not sure why they changed.

I would suspect to enable tangential spoke patterns.

[Black Dog]

Originally Posted by nooneline

They used to loop through the hub hole (pull loop through the hole, and then insert most of the spoke through the spoke loop) - the loop-and-rod approach in this thread is new to me. Not sure why they changed.

Different flange depths above the spoke holes and flange thickness would change the effective length of the spokes if they looped them. However looping looks more elegant for sure.

I also thought that spectra could be dyed. You can always grab some sharpies and go to town with any colour!