Despite other claims, the tubeless wheel was conceived in Italy by Tino Sacchi in 2001. The wheel seen here was never put into production due to high manufacturing costs, this were due to the wheel being machined from a solid billet of alloy! The wheel was looked at from a fresh start and point of view, a modern wheel for a Lambretta. The wheel was continually developed and changed until the first prototype was built and tested, this was done in late 2003. The wheel although tubeless, was still manufactured in two halves meaning a road side or easy repair could be carried out if need be. With some manufacturers wheels on the market, certain tyres can be difficult to fit, and almost all tyres are very hard if not impossible to remove. Thus once your tyre is worn, you will need to cut it off! With the alloy tubeless split rim, of course this is not the case! As mentioned in the beginning, the cost of the raw materials, plus the machining costs pretty much shelved the alloy wheel production. As with most things, cheap copies from the Far East came onto the market, although many of these have developed problems from ill fitting, to cracking. | ||||||||||||||
