LYNDALL BRAKES: EP 07 // How We Made The Monolithic Wheel // RACE BIKE CRASH TEST- MOTO AMERICA KOTB

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to the monolithic race wheel series.

[00:00:09]Today we have the the two first article pre-production race wheels that debuted at Kota or home track last year towards the end of the season Moto America's King of the Baggers on the 88 Max Flenders tobacco road mad monkey bike.

[00:00:26]So the the bike was subsequently tossed away in the first round at Daytona in the infield. And so now we can take a look at at what some of the crash damage looks. Now this bike was lowsided, barrel rolled towards the infield. And so it was a pretty good crash at a pretty decent speed. I would say probably around 80 miles an hour. And the bike was all tossed up. It broke the triple tree. It it it it broke several things on the bike and uh it was interesting to see when the wheels came in that that none of the spokes were broken. Uh the tires actually still held air. So that just lent to the validation of the strength and integrity of these wheels. So I just want to look at these.

[00:01:14]These were the first the very first rear wheel that we did and we sort of took a very cautious approach. We didn't back cut the hub any. We left a lot of mass in the hub to absorb the horsepower and take the loads. And and so this was before we could sort of creep up on on a lighter wheel without going too far in one direction and and sacrificing the structural integrity. So you can see the full mass in the hub.

[00:01:49]And uh but the the wall thickness in the whole rim area is 80,000. We're at 135,000 wall thickness in our spokes.

[00:01:59]That's down here. And then 90 thou maybe 95 thou here in this portion of the spoke. All of our spokes are are are sunk into the rim valley as you can see.

[00:02:10]So, there's a bit of structural integrity there, but you can see the wheel. I'm I'm going to roll it. I'm going to turn it to where you can see the crash side. And again, full barrel roll uh end over end. Catastrophic damage to many of the components. But here's the wheels. And you can that gives you some kind of idea. And I'll spin it so you can watch this plane of the wheel and sort of watch how that looks.

[00:02:37]And that's all the damage it took. Very impressive. So, here, let's switch around and take a look to the front wheel.

[00:02:47]And again, I'm going to turn it to where you can see the crash damage side. This is where it folded the tire over completely when he lost the front end and it it lowsided. And this is before it hooked up and went end over end. But you can see the damage here. And then just watch this plane right here when I when I rotate this wheel and you'll see how much damage is to the rimlet.

[00:03:13]And that's all. The rest of this wheel is is perfect. Both of these wheels are actually repairable. You could send these to Dr. John and he would fix you right up. But but again, you know, people were asking, "What's going to happen to this lightweight race wheel when it hits a a pothole or a curb or I crash my bike?"

[00:03:36]And so now we have some actual substantial crash damage wheels uh on the infield at Daytona on a King of the Baggers bike. So pretty good, you know, priceless data. Actually, the only place you can get this is this kind of data really is at the track. And so, so we have it now and and we're delighted to see that the wheels held up remarkably.

[00:04:00]There were even comments in the in the tech garage that uh they typically see the spokes break off on wheels in a crash of of that magnitude. And here I just want to show you here's a flow form wheel. Here's one of our old modular wheels with a very similar crash on it.

[00:04:18]And you can see how much more damage this wheel took. And again, it's because it doesn't have any grain structure. The molecules are not don't have any granular structure to them. So So this is a a it's a it's a flow form and it's stronger than a casting for sure. or cast wheel would have been obliterated, but this flow form wheel took a lot of damage. And it was a pretty comparable crash to what we have here. And this just illustrates the value of starting with a high-pressure forging. It costs a lot, but here's what you get, and you get what you pay for. In in the case of the high-pressure forging, you get a a wheel that's that's uh that's substantially lighter and substantially stronger. So, we just wanted to uh to bring this good illustration to your awareness and and show you some of the ways that we're we're gaining more insight uh into our designs and and always looking on how we can improve what we've already done and uh and gaining knowledge on, you know, where we've been and and where we are now.

[00:05:30]It's we've come a long way. We're super proud of that and we hope you are too.

[00:05:35]So, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode and thanks for following.

[00:05:38]Give us a follow and a like. Give us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. So, uh again, we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Bye.