This month's Velovision issue 34 has the long awaited full review of the GoCycle.
It seems my previous strong criticism of the shallow rim profile of the cast magnesium wheels was justified, since the handbook now warns owners to check them every 500 miles for cracks, especially around the five spoke heads, clearly something that has cropped up. This is exactly what I'd warned of since the rim should have been either deep V profile or have an internal circumferential rib to reinforce the unsupported arcs. The current thin and wide profile is just plain bad engineering design, permitting the distortion under impact that strains the spoke junctions.
I don't think a handbook warning is satisfactory when design correction was so easy, and I don't think style should ever have precedence over safety as has happened here. There are numerous good examples of how to design these cast wheels in the motorcycle world so there's little excuse.
GoCycle
.
It seems my previous strong criticism of the shallow rim profile of the cast magnesium wheels was justified, since the handbook now warns owners to check them every 500 miles for cracks, especially around the five spoke heads, clearly something that has cropped up. This is exactly what I'd warned of since the rim should have been either deep V profile or have an internal circumferential rib to reinforce the unsupported arcs. The current thin and wide profile is just plain bad engineering design, permitting the distortion under impact that strains the spoke junctions.
I don't think a handbook warning is satisfactory when design correction was so easy, and I don't think style should ever have precedence over safety as has happened here. There are numerous good examples of how to design these cast wheels in the motorcycle world so there's little excuse.
GoCycle
.
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