At Spin Industries we know that great wheels are the realisation of painstakingly combining fine craftsmanship with precision engineered performance components.
The Components
The Hub
At the centre of every great wheel there must be a great
hub. And since we started making wheels we’ve learnt a great deal about
what makes a great hub, through three generations of use, feedback, race
testing, development and constant improvement on those original designs we
started out with. Everything we learnt in generations One and Two we built into our Generation Three
SPN Precision hubs, and these often overlooked components are at the spinning heart of every wheel we make.
Many cheaper and not so cheaper hub shells are simply machined from billet (solid) alloy. We love machining metal, but it’s not the best way to produce light and strong components. For that you need some old school heavy metal: the forge. Forging is a powerful, violent process harnessing huge force and great pressure to stamp and bash your metal components into existence. It may seem crude and out of date next to carefully crafted airfoil shapes moulded in carbon fibre . But forging does what machining can’t: aligns and reinforces the crystalline metallic structure, the metal’s “grain”, increasing it’s strength so allowing the use of less material. The result is stronger, lighter hub shells and is just one of the aspects we consider when engineering our hubs.
The Rim
All of our rims, both alloy and carbon are wide. Really
wide.
We make Wide Boys which measure 23mm at the brake tracks. And
then there’s Fat Boy Rim, with 25mm brake tracks.
Standard clinchers range from 17-19mm wide at the tracks and
are simply not well suited to today’s most popular tyre widths from 23mm and
up. A wider rim generates optimal arcing tread profiles with 23c and wider
tyres, requires less pressure to perform, rolls faster with less resistance and
corners harder with more grip!
You can read my full explanation of why fat rims, not fat tyres are what you should be spinning on and how this combination delivers more
speed, more grip and less rolling resistance.
The Spoke & Nipple
Finally, a fast wheel built to last and perform must be
tight. Really tight. Our wheels are built with enormous radial tension which
makes them direct, reactive and deliciously precise. It’s also what makes
them strong and able to withstand plenty of knocks, bumps, pot holes and even
no holds barred race-speed crashes. So for this reason we choose to
build only with the world’s best spokes & nipples from Sapim in Belgium.
What else?
Great ingredients are only part of any great recipe. It’s what you do with them and how you do it that make all the difference!