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Where To Get Antique Repro Wheels?
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I'm considering options on building a motorized bicycle up as a
boardtrack racer replica. I started out planning on just using bicycle
parts and constructing a frame myself, but one of the main sources of
problems with such projects is the weakness of regular bicycle spokes,
and I'm seeing that the braking setups aren't exactly real great either.
Looking around online I've found that Coker still makes the tires-
(28x3 CL COKER CLASSIC CYCLE BUTTON TREAD ALL WHITE)
but I don't know where to go for wheels or rims for them.
How practical would it be to get a pair of rims this size and lace them
onto some moped or light-motorcycle hubs that had drum brakes?
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Contrary to what Albrecht says (again), relatively easy in the UK, where
we have an amazing number of small classic bike businesses and
specialist wheel builders.
Like these guys:
Wheel building labour charge from £32 (say 65 bucks). They make their
own spokes, so no problem there.
Your only problem might be finding hubs that have the same number of
spokes as the bicycle rims you intend to use.
I find it hard to believe that no similar company exists in the US.
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Somewhere probably does but I can't turn up much useful in web-search.
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How about searching the web for "wheelsmith"?
How much money do you plan to pour into this project anyway? Do you plan to
ride it on the street, or just keep it at home and hang it on the wall?
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Also--I could use bicycle parts and get something that looked very
close, but I'm curious about what rims would cost for those repro 28" x
3" motorcycle tires.
I've looked a bit more and some of the photos of vintage bikes show 40
spokes,,,but most show 36, and most moped wire spoke wheels do show 36
spokes also (nine groups of four spokes crossing, or you see 8 groups,
with the last hidden behind the fork leg).
Cruiser bicycles (in the US) do use 36 spokes front and rear, but I'd
hate to find that there was something a lot better to use (for hubs and
rims) that I hadn't looked for.
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