Here's the deal. I have a contact, Matt, a precision metal engineer who produces custom motorbike parts for one of the Ducati racing teams and has recently gone part time in order to produce small quantities of parts for private individuals i.e. not bespoke, but not huge numbers that you'd go to china for.
We've sat down with a set of primo trispokes to look into the possibility of producing a two-piece solid aluminium version and have established that it is well within his capability and that of his workshop. Next stage will be establishing the most efficient way to mass produce with a prototype to follow to establish a rough idea of costing.
To make things work, as a rough starting point we estimate that we'd need an order of approximately 30-40 units, or 10 sets of 4. Obviously, more will need to be involved if people only want 2 for the front wheels.
So, questions are:
if we could manufacture solid aluminimum trispokes, would people be interested?
If so, would people be looking for 2, 4 or more hubs, and how much would be too much?
Are there any features that are important, such as keeping weight up/down?
Does anyone remember how much manhicks originally went for? They seem to go on ebay for around £20-30 + p&p.
Matt will be costing this up at his usual business rate. I'm not looking to add a percentage on top; I just want a supply of manhicks and from the way they sell on ebay second hand, I suspect others do too.
For those wondering why we are looking to do this, manhicks are heavy, but allow ABS-type brakes to compress directly on the rim of the hub without the need for disks. In addition, the added weight adds breaking power.
So... any interest folks?
Forgot to mention, what probably wouldn't be possible without quite a lot of work is to include the small indentations as used on the Primo Strikers as just about visible in the right hand image.
I notice however that the manhicks appear to be smooth as per the link below, so... has anyone had an issue with wheel slippage i.e. apply the brakes, hubs stop turning, wheels continue turning?
http://www.mountainboard.ru/2008/05/...t-1-pro-diski/
Naturally, I have asked for the hub sides to be smooth and logo free.
Need a name though. Dirty Hubs?
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