Bicycle wheel Bicycle wheel A bicycle wheel is a wheel, most commonly a wire wheel, designed for a bicycle. A pair is often called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready built "off the shelf" performance-oriented wheels. Bicycle wheels are typically designed to fit into the frame and fork via dropouts, and hold bicycle tires. The first bicycle wheels followed the traditions of carriage building: a wooden hub, a fixed steel axle (the bearings were located in the fork ends), wooden spokes and a shrink fitted iron tire. A typical modern wheel has a metal hub, wire tension spokes and a
Idler-wheel Idler-wheel An idler-wheel is wheel which serves only to transmit rotation from one shaft to another, in applications where it is undesirable to connect them directly. For example, connecting a motor to the platter of a phonograph, or the crankshaft-to-camshaft gear train of an automobile. Because it does no work itself, it is called an "idler". An idler-wheel may be used as part of a friction drive mechanism. For example, to connect a metal motor shaft to a metal platter without gear noise, early phonographs used a rubber idler wheel. Likewise, the pinch roller in a magnetic tape transport is