It depends on if you mean ones promoted as aero, or just ones with the right profile. Some of the 30's wood rims have a cross section nearly the same as the early 80's aero rims. Mavic had an experimental disc wheel in 1973. And as usual, none of this was anything new. The Archibald sharp book (1896) on bike design shows and describes a sheet steel disc and 4 spoke aero wheel. (page 352 in the dover reprint) I wonder if any of those survived?
Steve Birmingham Lowell,MA USA
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 11:05:13 -0800 From: Brandon Ives <brandon@ivycycles.com> To: "David Bilenkey" <dbilenkey@sympatico.ca> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?First_Aero_Rims_Re:_[CR]_Light_wheels_-_WAS_L=FCd?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?ers_-_Masi?= Message-ID: <FDEB2A24-9E55-11DA-BAC0-00039356BD92@ivycycles.com> In-Reply-To: <BAYC1-PASMTP05E8BE4FC87088FB59A619CEFA0@CEZ.ICE> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed MIME-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v553) Precedence: list Message: 15
I know there were a few aero profile rims in the classic era. The earliest I remember were the Saavedra (sp?) and Araya in the early 80s.
Were there any aero profile rims before these? best, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives retro-techno-weenie in Vancouver, B.C.