I wouldn’t buy one, but for the sake of a counter-argument: Hubs have been around for a long time and have had many refinements over the years. Many of the flaws that the hubless design suffers from might very well be mitigated through further development over the next hundred years or so. Still, I prefer the repairability, practicality, and reliability of a wheel with spokes as well.
Many of the flaws that the hubless design suffers from might very well be mitigated through further development
Sure, additional refinement could make hubless wheels a reasonable reality. I’ll reiterate one of my original points: all engineering advancements that would make a better hubless wheel would also improve the already great hubbed wheel. Even if we could ignore the complexities of going hubless, the radially supported wheel will be stronger, lighter, simpler, less expensive, more aerodynamic, more repairable.
I might be getting a bit esoteric here, but the same conversations come up in software engineering. “Advances in computing will make Ruby more performant.” Sure, but those advances will be multiplicative in already-performant languages such as C, C++, and Go, whereas they will be fractional in Ruby.
I wouldn’t buy one, but for the sake of a counter-argument: Hubs have been around for a long time and have had many refinements over the years. Many of the flaws that the hubless design suffers from might very well be mitigated through further development over the next hundred years or so. Still, I prefer the repairability, practicality, and reliability of a wheel with spokes as well.
Sure, additional refinement could make hubless wheels a reasonable reality. I’ll reiterate one of my original points: all engineering advancements that would make a better hubless wheel would also improve the already great hubbed wheel. Even if we could ignore the complexities of going hubless, the radially supported wheel will be stronger, lighter, simpler, less expensive, more aerodynamic, more repairable.
I might be getting a bit esoteric here, but the same conversations come up in software engineering. “Advances in computing will make Ruby more performant.” Sure, but those advances will be multiplicative in already-performant languages such as C, C++, and Go, whereas they will be fractional in Ruby.