straight pull spokes -a 'new' idea?

[Brucey]

It has long been speculated that there is nothing new in the world of bicycle design; as if further evidence were needed when I looked here;

https://www.flickr.com/photos/speedplaypedals/sets/

I found a picture of this straight pull hub


which dates from 1898....

So the next time someone tells you that straight pull spokes are all spangly, new and wonderful, you can tell them that they were an idea that was tried and fell by the wayside, well over 100 years ago....

cheers

[colin54]

,and what goes up might come down....

http://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... ew-11.html

[MartinC]

................and next a smaller freehub to take 7s cassettes with 11s spacing which fits on a dishless 130mm hub.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[CREPELLO]

IT's also got an oversized hub shell for lateral stiffness, like most modern hubs have got (well at least that's what the blurb for modern hubs usually says).

[Valbrona]

IT's also got an oversized hub shell for lateral stiffness, .

I thought the oversizing was essentially to save weight, but it also seems logical that it would improve stiffness if it is considered that it is important for hubs to be stiff.

[Thomas125]

Its got a grease port too. Not a bad idea at all.

[Keith Bennett]

When visiting a club mate who ran a bike shop in Marlow about 50 years ago he took me into the workshop and showed me a new front wheel that he had just built for his old ordinary (penny farthing) that certainly had straight pull spokes. And I remember racing in the late 1940s with a Baylis Wiley free hub intended to take three fixed wheel sprockets, screwed on, only three speed blocks were available in those days, however having a Father that worked in an engineering workshop I was able the get four sprockets on. There was an ex Italian POW that rode with the Chichester C.C. I believe his surname was Balloni often met up with in races at Goodwood who also used a BW freehub. "what goes around comes around"

[Kaysbloke]

The Bayliss Wiley hub, taken from 'The Complete Cyclist' by R J Way published in 1951. The book is full of 'exploded' drawings of period components, all done by the author I presume and of excellent quality. Not quite 'Rebour' but not far off!

This version has 4 sprockets and 3 sets of bearings. I wonder why this ended up as the 'dead end' of hub development for some time until Shimano re-invented it. It seems much more mechanically efficient than the screw-on freewheel which became the market standard for many years. The axle is supported at both extreme ends in contrast to the screw-on hub which can have a large 'overhang'.

[Brucey]

actually that hub has four sets of bearings and the axle loading is similar to a campagnolo cassette hub, i.e. it isn't quite as good as it is with a shimano cassette hub.

I think the main problem with that hub could have been that it was quite expensive. Secondary issues include that whoever designed it wasn't thinking about access for drive-side spoke replacement; all the sprockets screw on so in the event that a spoke breaks you need to unscrew them all or dismantle all the freewheel (or hub) bearings. By contrast unscrewing a freewheel unit is looking a bit easier.

Had they (say) used splined sprockets (using the SA spline for example) it might have been a more successful product.

cheers