Motorcycle wheel wheels are predominantly made from an aluminium-alloy, but can also be made from more-exotic materials, such as magnesium content alloy or carbon fibre. The first commercial motorcycles were built like bicycles, with wire wheels as bicycles had traditionally been fitted with. The Steffey motorcycle in 1902, essentially a bicycle with a two-stroke engine attached, used wooden rims with wire spokes. This style of wheel evolved into a stouter motorcycle-specific wheel, still with spokes, up to the 1960s and beyond. In April, 1922, Borrani started production of motorcycle wheels with an aluminium rim. Although cast wheels had already been used on
Bicycle brake terminology) uses a series of rods and pivots, rather than Bowden cables, to transmit force applied to a hand lever to pull friction pads upwards against the inner surface, which faces the hub, of the wheel rim. They were often called "stirrup brakes" due to their shape. Rod brakes are used with a rim profile known as the Westwood rim, which has a slightly concave area on the braking surface and lacks the flat outer surface required by brakes that apply the pads on opposite sides of the rim. The rear linkage mechanism is complicated by the need to allow