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EB15: Gokiso builds complete wheels out of their amazing suspended hubs, plus titanium hubs & road bikes

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Gokiso carbon fiber clincher road bike wheels

Japanese brand Gokiso has added to their remarkably smooth micro suspension hubs, creating their own carbon fiber clincher road rims built into complete wheels.

The combination results in something they claim has extremely low inertia, requiring just 0.5g of force to start them rolling. That means they’ll spool up faster for quick acceleration and less effort to keep them rolling fast. Part of their ongoing energy savings comes from a unique inner bead shape that brings the tire much closer to the edge of the rim and creates a wide, stable tire shape.

Check it out, along with some new hubs and an absolutely gorgeous titanium bicycle from a partner brand…

Gokiso carbon fiber clincher road bike wheels

Notice the minuscule gap between the edge of the rim and the tire? That’s by design, helping smooth air flow. But that’s just one of the benefits:

Gokiso carbon fiber clincher road bike wheels

The rims’ unique bead socket shape is CNC’d in their own factory in Japan. On the inside, it’s shaped to completely trap the tire bead with no gaps. On the top, it’s curved to provide a smoother transition off the rim, which they say gives the tire a wider, more naturally round shape to improve stability. If true, we’d say it should also improve handling by making cornering more predictable.

They also say it creates a shorter (but slightly wider) contact patch with the ground, which results in lower rolling resistance.

Gokiso carbon fiber clincher road bike wheels

A closer look on two different rim depths.

Gokiso carbon fiber clincher road bike wheels

The rims will come in 29mm (480g), 38mm (500g), and 50mm (530g) depths, sold as complete wheels. The braking surface has a basalt layer to improve friction.

Gokiso-titanium-suspended-road-bike-hubs01

For the hubs, we covered their technology a couple years ago in great detail and with videos, but the short of it is that the ribs suspend the spoke flanges and allow for micro movements. Internally, a slotted sleeve acts like a leaf spring to add a tiny bit more movement, all while keeping the hub adequately stiff. Hit that link above to see it in action, it’s worth it.

Gokiso-titanium-suspended-road-bike-hubs02

At the top of the line are these titanium-shelled Super Climber hubs. They’re not the lightest ones they make, but they use more and finer ridges on the front and, well, they’re titanium. Weights are approximately 240g front and 450g rear.

Gokiso-titanium-suspended-road-bike-hubs00

Notice how the spoke flange floats above the rest of the hub shell. Each of the supporting ridges acts like an external leaf spring, and that’s just phase one of the suspension.

Gokiso-suspended-road-bike-hub02

The aluminum shelled Climber hubs come in at about 190g front and 400g rear. Not light by modern standards, but there’s a lot going on inside them:

Gokiso-suspended-road-bike-hub-internals02

Click to enlarge and you’ll see the cylinder inside with slots. The outer hub shell only contacts this cylinder in the middle, letting the material left between the slots act as small leaf springs to provide a bit more suspension. The design separates any suspension movement from the bearings, so it doesn’t affect how smooth they roll. And thanks to very high grade ceramic bearings, they do indeed roll very, very smoothly.

Gokiso-suspended-road-bike-hub-internals03

The design splits the freehub body’s bearings, putting a hub axle support bearing between them, which spreads the load as wide as possible to reduce flex.

Gokiso-suspended-road-bike-hub-internals04

Top all that off with 92 teeth and alternating engagement (see how that pawl on the left sits between teeth? Two pawls are engaged at any given time, the other two just half a step off. That makes for very quick engagement, and since the pawls are twice as wide as normal ones, there’s plenty of contact to carry the load.

Gokiso-internally-suspended-road-bike-hub01

They also make internally suspended hubs. While they don’t look like the external ones above, the outer sections of the hub shell are also suspended over the axle, sitting on the inner cylinder only in the thinner center section. All of their hubs use a reinforced inner axle to support all of the micro movement without flexing.

Gokiso-internally-suspended-road-bike-hub02

Gokiso-passoni-titanium-handcrafted-road-bikes01

Gokiso formed a relationship with Passoni bicycles and used their frames to demo the wheels. This one in particular stood out for its amazing craftsmanship.

Gokiso-passoni-titanium-handcrafted-road-bikes02

Fluidly smooth welds drew us in, then details like the brake cable ports kept us hunting.

Gokiso-passoni-titanium-handcrafted-road-bikes04

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A small guide integrated into the derailleur hanger catches and hides an EPS/Di2 wire, keeping it from jutting out sideways or getting in the way of the quick release during wheel changes.

gokiso-hub-tech-sheets1 gokiso-hub-tech-sheets2

A little further reading on the hubs, click to enlarge. And check out their website for videos and more.

Gokiso.jp

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ken
ken
8 years ago

Is it just me or are the flanges on the rear hubs on the narrow side?

Michael
Michael
8 years ago

“allow for micro movements” correct me if i am wrong, but i thought wheels that flexed back and forth were a bad thing.
That was a dumb video. all their examples of uneven bearing load do to axle flex are almost non existent with today’s over-sized aluminum axles (which is what they showed as their solution to the problem. Sorry, everyone else beat you to it). That is only an issue with small diameter steel axles.

And the example of the how their hubs flex up and down, wait until you stand up to pedal and rock you bike side to side. The those wheels will be flexing side to side rubbing the brake pads.

It was also funny how they show fast their hubs spin while that guy is holding it in his hand with the bearings completely unloaded

Question
Question
8 years ago

Does the shorter (but slightly wider) contact patch mean a higher chance of pinch flats?

TheKaiser
8 years ago

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but this article seems to make the same mistake as a lot of others on the Gokiso hubs. It may just be my interpretation, but this article seems to imply that the purpose of the “suspension” in the hubs is to help isolate the rider, and they manage to do it without affecting the bearings. But, from my reading of their website and a more in depth look at the internals on an aussie website it sounded like the primary intent is actually to isolate the bearings from external loads that could negatively affect their alignment and therefore rolling resistance, and isolating the rider is of minimal concern.

Not saying that their claims are legit, just that their claims are different than what you might initially conclude from this info.

Larry Falk
Larry Falk
8 years ago

The carbon bead hook curve makes allot of sense – one of those design refinements that is so simple you think why nobody tried it before. Re hubs: I thinks it’s cool engineering, but in the big scheme of things, the complexity is probably unnecessary. “TheKaiser” is correct, the suspension is about eliminating axel and bearing deformation. But alas, I haven’t had any problems with my Phil Touring hubs, with at least 10,000 miles of loaded touring, so this simple setup has worked for me. But more choice is always good!

James
James
8 years ago

I have raced these wheels most of the season, I honestly don’t know of a wheel that rolls better once its up to speed – yes they are a bit heavy but on the flat and cobbles they are noticeably smoother than a stock carbon clincher build on say a zipp or shimano hub! 1 small downside of these wheels is the front bearing seals can squeek a bit – this weirdly doesn’t affect the rolling resistance but it can be annoying!

Andy
Andy
8 years ago

(deleted)

bbb
bbb
8 years ago

There is always a point where products get over engineered. Plenty of “normal” hubs will do exactly the same job for less money and at lower weight. Bearing friction is so irrelevant in the scale of things that whoever claims to feel the difference is just bull****ing.

Cheese
Cheese
8 years ago

“requiring just 0.5g of force to start them rolling.” Something apparently got lost in translation there.

PsiSquared
PsiSquared
8 years ago

@Cheese: the units can be right if they were using SI engineering units, where kilograms-force is the unit of force and if they were applying said 0.5g force tangential to the wheel or tire.

RobertW
RobertW
8 years ago

It is a fuzzy statement. I could get any hub to start rolling with half a gram of force if I could choose my distance to center…torque is what matters.

Cheese
Cheese
8 years ago

Kilograms force is not an SI unit, newtons is.

PsiSquared
PsiSquared
8 years ago

@Cheese: Note I said SI engineering units, not SI units. There is a difference: in SI units the unit force is Newtons. In SI engineering units, the unit of force is the Kilogram-force. Read this for more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram-force

Jay
Jay
8 years ago

Well I guess the final question is how much is a wheelset?

Lucky
Lucky
5 years ago

Designing a hub with no friction in mind and taking a free-wheel-ratchet-system-design with one of the most friction doesn´t go well together for me? So the benefit is only there when pedaling…

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