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M5’s 2-Spoke wheels cut back on spokes & wind resistance, plus new disc brake version

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courtesy Mathilde DusolPara Media Groep

Aero is Everything‘ is one of the most recent mantras in road cycling, and we’ve seen all manner of attempts to cheat the wind. The latest, and one of the most dramatic that we’ve come across are the appropriately named 2-Spoke wheels from Dutch outfit M5. Watching any road race against the clock, it’s been clear for a while that traditional spoke wheels must generate more drag, as top pros often end up racing 3-5 spoked front wheels paired sometimes with solid disc out back to slice through the wind more cleanly.

Now with carbon wheel construction continuing to advance, the Dutch aero experts at M5 have cut the spoked wheel back to just two in what they are claiming is the lowest wind resistance of any commercially available road wheel – comparing from traditional spokes to bladed spoke wheels, even to discs. And while that does seem like a pretty wild claim, Dutch riders won several medals on the wheels at the Rio Paralympics, they’ve been raced on the track at the Olympics, in Qatar at the World TT champs, and now the elite Dutch TT champion has just signed on to race them in 2017. And they are even available for disc brake bikes too…

all images courtesy M5, photo Mathilde Dusol

Blind stoker Vincent Ter Shure and sighted captain Timo Fransen pedaled to Paralympic Gold on the road & Silver in the TT with a 2-Spoke on their tandem giving some support to the idea that the wheels are structurally sound, even missing more spokes.

photo by Bert Willems

Then rider Jetze Plat spun up another couple of medals, with a Gold in the Triathlon and a Bronze in his road H5 category with three of the 2-Spokes on his handcycle.

The M5 2-Spoke wheels uses a unique directional design that has a single airfoil shaped spar connecting the rim to the hub (and making up the two spokes) It then uses a 23.7 mm wide rim profile that varies in depth as it rotates, maintaining a mid-depth 48mm profile as it approaches the transition in the wind at the spoke blades, but then gets deeper up to 90mm after the spoke cuts through the air to more smoothly more smoothly transition the airflow again. It results in a somewhat similar varied rim depth to the Zipp 454 NSW, but with 2 spokes instead of 18 or 24.

The 2-Spokes are available in several configurations, including road & track tubulars as well as road, road disc, and track clinchers. The wheels are built with a mix of pretty standard T800 & T1000 UD carbon for a reliable balance of strength to weight. That puts the lightest track tubulars at about 1810g for a set, 20g more for road tubulars, 1870g for a set of road clinchers, plus another 85g for road disc clinchers. While that isn’t very light for a high-end carbon wheelset, M5 does say that the rim portion itself is rather light, putting more of the weight closer to the hub where rotational inertia is less of a concern.

The wheels have UCI approval for time trial and track competition. M5 has just partnered with recently crowned Dutch elite TT national champion Remco Grasman who will be racing on 2-SPokes for 2017, so we’ll start to see them more in some bigger UCI races.

They get M5’s own bonded-in alloy hubs with Japanese bearings, available for Shimano or Campy freehubs or of course track. The rim brake road wheels include a basalt braking surface, and the disc wheels use the 6-bolt standard.

The design was first developed through CFD aero studies, then M5 took them into the wind tunnel to put them head to head with deep section conventionally spoked wheels; 3, 4, 5 & 6 spoked carbon wheels, and even solid discs. They say their results “show very clearly the number 1 position of the 2-Spoke wheel versus ALL other current wheel types” but are holding their data close to the chest for now.

The wheels are made in the Netherlands, and while certainly not cheap, are actually more affordable than many top-level wheels from the big names in aero carbon. Pricing for the wheels is essentially the same for any version: 1178€ for front wheels and 1260€ for rear wheels. M5 sells the wheels through some partner retailers but also direct to consumers with payment via bank transfer, and offers delivery worldwide.

Plus, without traditional spokes the clinchers get an uninterrupted rim bed and are tubeless ready. There is a lot of inertia in the pro peloton away from the norm of rim brakes and tubulars, but when you are a company already making an unconventional wheel it makes sense to adopt the latest technologies.

With rolling resistance studies showing gains with tubeless setups and seeing some pros already winning on aero bikes benefiting from more consistent braking no matter the weather, it’s nice to see new wheel designs like this adopting the latest tech.

2-Spoke.com

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33 Comments
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boom
boom
7 years ago

*grabs popcorn, refreshes page for comments*

Stephen B
Stephen B
7 years ago

April 1st already?

Seraph
Seraph
7 years ago

Does it come in through axle? If it does they would be awesome on my cross bike. Ok I’m 99% joking.

RC Speed
RC Speed
7 years ago

No data? Holding cards near chest? = Don’t have any data to back up claims.

Grill
Grill
7 years ago
Reply to  RC Speed

Perhaps they’re just taking their time to word the protocol so that it doesn’t sound completely ridiculous.

RC Speed
RC Speed
7 years ago
Reply to  Grill

I think M5 are past that point considering they state it “is the lowest wind resistance of any commercially available road wheel”.
If that is so then the protocol that was used in the comparison testing should be ironed out and ready to go…yet I cant find anything but a lot of marketing filler.

Other Aaron
Other Aaron
7 years ago

that hand-cycle looks insane

JustSomeGuy
JustSomeGuy
7 years ago
Reply to  Other Aaron

It really does. Like something Batman would ride.

JustSomeGuy
JustSomeGuy
7 years ago

I’m waiting for the one spoke wheel.

Allan
Allan
7 years ago
Reply to  JustSomeGuy

haha

Other Aaron
Other Aaron
7 years ago
Reply to  JustSomeGuy

Citroen used to make some.

Granted they were for steering

John Cattrall
7 years ago
Reply to  JustSomeGuy

That’s called a disc

Andrew
Andrew
7 years ago

Nice! I applaud them for thinking outside the box and doing something new.

MaraudingWalrus
7 years ago
Reply to  Andrew

get outta here with that kinda positivity!

Steve Gaucher
Steve Gaucher
7 years ago

I think they’re super cool looking and I’m only sad they’re that heavy…

Champs
Champs
7 years ago

TWO spokes? Sounds like my wheel rebuild project…

cyclist12
cyclist12
7 years ago

But your arm could get stuck in there if you crash……..

Carbonate
Carbonate
7 years ago

I love them! It’d be cool if they integrated some kind of modular concept whereby you could slot in a dyno hub at the front instead of a lightweight hub and then at the rear maybe a gear hub like alfine instead of a casette hub. That’d be a whole load of design work beyond the realms of carbon specialists I suppose but flexibility is the key in my mind. These are they wheels that offer wind assistance at certain angles aren’t they?

joe
joe
7 years ago

They should call those wheels ‘The Deuce-Deuce’

Volsung
Volsung
7 years ago

Finally, a wheel that can sever a head in a crash. That’s almost as bad as someone cutting a shoe.

ascarlarkinyar
ascarlarkinyar
7 years ago

If it spins fast enough, it will be a full disk wheel

Bewer
Bewer
7 years ago

Ridiculous from a stiffness point of view

satanas
satanas
7 years ago

2-Spoke, or not 2-Spoke, that is the question: whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer…

Robin
Robin
7 years ago
Reply to  satanas

Maybe, maybe not. It certainly seems as if the extra weight these carry is due in party to make up for stiffness lost given the number of spokes. With that said, to my knowledge no one has really quantified what energy losses occur in a wheel as a function of lateral stiffness. Interestingly a few years ago Mavic reported they did a study in which test riders road bikes with varying wheels and wheels that varied in lateral stiffness. They found that riders could not predictably rank the wheels in terms of lateral stiffness. With that hand, these wheels might be sufficiently stiff.

Robin
Robin
7 years ago
Reply to  Robin

*rode bikes, not *road bikes. Doh!

Lawrence L Falk
Lawrence L Falk
7 years ago

If the Lotus bike was the fastest ever, this design mimics that so I can see their aero claims being true. Visually, these wheels are an adjustment, but if they could get the weight down a bit, I would ride them.

JC
JC
7 years ago

That will slice someone’s arm off if they get in a massive crash. The pros wont allow it.

Sam
Sam
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

I know you are kidding, but anything like this isn’t allowed in mass start events

Peter Christensen
Peter Christensen
7 years ago

They certainly look very cool. Do remember, however, how one of my club mates rode a set of HED 3-spoke wheels 10 years back and binned them because they were horrible in cross winds.

Would be nice to have some info about their behaviour – a chance you chaps will have a review on these anytime?

TK
TK
7 years ago

I’m getting the disc brake version to add to my Xena: Warrior Princess costume. Thoughts?

a hunka hunka
a hunka hunka
7 years ago

can i put these on my dirt bike… and have a 2 stroke/2 spoke?

fred
fred
7 years ago

I wish they picked a CFD shot that wasn’t nonsense. Doesn’t help their case at all….

kurt
kurt
7 years ago

the handcycles looks great, ev. else average

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