WHY WIRES?

WE ARE A NATION DIVIDED

Forget about that red-state/blue-state thing, or which bathroom to use, or burgers or burritos, boxers or briefs. We’re talking about the state of the motorcycling union. Wheels, specifically. Wire or cast?

Incendiary rhetoric aside, here’s the real question. Why do the best dirt bikes in the world still use wire wheels, while the best roadbikes embrace cast construction?

Journey with us chariot) go back about four millennia. These are compression-spoke construction— the load path pushes down from the hub and tries to compress the spoke(s) below. The first wire tension-spoke wheels show up around 1800. They’re still radial construction; the spokes radiate straight out of the hub. The real breakthrough comes with the tangentspoked tensioned wheel, courtesy of James Starley in 1870. These are the wheels we see on bicycles and motorcycles today. Why is this important?