WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

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SoyBoySigh
Posts: 5
Joined: 14 Oct 2017 02:45
Location: Alberta, Canada

WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

Post by SoyBoySigh »

Hey there.

I'm looking for the Akront "NERVI" rims, like are found on the Grimeca composite wheels on the EXCALIBUR - awesome lightweight stuff, rare as hen's teeth.

Yanno, with some changes to the steering geometry, maybe some taller shocks, pair up 16" with 16" or 18" with 18", and the EXCALIBUR would be the most awesome track bike Morini ever made - for the period, that is. It's all to do with these Akront rims. There's really nothing comparable! I'd love to see 'em stacked up, the MARVIC version with the cast center, and the GRIMECA version with the thin cold-worked (aka "cold-FORGED"?) spoke blades plates and complex structured center hubs. Even if the all-in weight wasn't superior, I'm betting they'd test better on a spinning test rig looking at the rolling inertia & mass distribution etc. AWESOME stuff right there.

ANYWAY - not to talk ya'll into KEEPING your Akront "NERVI" rims - let ME take 'em off your hands!

I'll take the Excalibur wheels, OR loose unassembled rims, used or NOS whatever the heck is going on with 'em even if you've got PLANS for the things, let's at least TALK about 'em?

IMHO the MORAD company ought to bring these things back from the brink of extinction. Just take a minute to think of all of the models this could affect - The DUCATI special editions from the 750ss "SuperLight" to the F1 Montjuich/SantaMonica/LagunaSeca, or how about the Bimota Tesi 1D for starters? The '77-'88 HONDA people would sure appreciate it. But especially anywhere you'd see the MARVIC composites with the Magnesium centers - A whole lot of fantastic uses for these rims. Even if you didn't have a pair of the Marvic cores, any decent cast wheel could be machined to substitute for 'em. In which instance, I suppose you could do like Marvic did with later versions for their wheels, and utilize a non-dimpled specimen of the wire-spoke type Akront rims - But even then, the "NERVI" would be preferable, 'cause of the extra strength imbued by that tall central spine/flange......

Well in order to get the ATTENTION of the Morad company, we need to get some of these bikes out there into the custom bike shows and concors especially, like Pebble Beach etc - perhaps more importantly, the Classic bike magazines and the major BLOGS, too - Anywhere that'll get the word out there, about the need for these wheels to come back from the brink.

I picture a 3.0x18" or 3.50x18" built onto a front wheel with a bolt-on cush-drive, stuck on the back end - a dual-disc conversion with a substitute front hub, and you could have some really fantastic racing wheels for sporting 500 - Heck even just as they are, with a taller pair of shocks to keep the ride height standard with that 16" rear wheel - I know it doesn't fit the standard jelly-mould but performance wise, it's ... it's got potential!

Okay so hopefully you think that idea SUCKS, and you'll wanna let ME grub up all of the "NERVI" rims?

Either way, thanks for your time! And hey - if I don't check my messages right away, if you're itching to get rid of those rims, I'm "SoyBoySigh" on several other bike forums, and I'm "Binky Sigh" on Crackbook.



-Silas.
norbert
Posts: 750
Joined: 15 May 2007 15:15
Location: Lübeck/Germany

Re: WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

Post by norbert »

I don´t realy know when, maybe 10 years ago we orderd a couple of rims directy from Morad (well I´was only translating) that were unbored. I think it was about for 10 bikes. Some ordrered nervi rims, others other models easier to clean. They were quite cheap, less than the half I had to pay for some old Borranis at that time. Giving it to a specialist for boring and completing it with sprockets it wasn´t that cheap in the end.
But I guess they still have that rims.

norbert
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hombre
Posts: 625
Joined: 09 Apr 2006 16:15
Location: Amsterdam/Alessandria
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Re: WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

Post by hombre »

How many Excaliburwheels do you want? (I think I have three pairs) ;)
https://link.marktplaats.nl/m1192617445
SoyBoySigh
Posts: 5
Joined: 14 Oct 2017 02:45
Location: Alberta, Canada

Re: WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

Post by SoyBoySigh »

WOW - Thanks fellas. I didn't expect such helpful responses so quickly! Awesome.

Guess I should PM each of you, but I'll respond here as well.

Hombre first, as I can be quick & to the point - You're over in Der Nederlanden (I've been, back in the '80s as a teenager and I LOVED it, spent a week just walking around Rotterdam especially the Schiedam area) This presents some issues with shipping. So hopefully you'd be willing to remove tires? Given the delicate nature of these rims, well - thank GAWD you're an Excalibur aficionado, so I don't need to explain cutting the sidewall with a knife so as to avoid damage to the rims! So much advice out there about changing tires, I've gotta wonder.... Well, yeah I'd bet in the old days people probably DID re-use crusty old tires! Ha-ha. I suppose every now and again there's an unmolested example of a rare old tire which would be useful for a museum quality restoration, wherein people might even destroy the wheel to save the tire! Ha-ha. But that's definitely the exception not the rule. Gotta wonder how many motorcyclists have followed the standard practice only to sit glumly looking at chipped paint & dented rims, sitting next to a lovely perfect tire that they've then gotta figure out how to haul down to the recycling facility, looking up where that IS, figuring out where motorcycle tires fit within the FEE structure, paying that fee and driving home ... while (finally) out of sight out of mind, that tire is chipped into crumbs by an enormous beast of a wood-chipper - And then return to repair & repaint their wheels, only to lather rinse & repeat every time they need a tire! It's ridonculous! Outside of mainland China or the Indian subcontinent perhaps, is there ANYBODY still hanging onto old tires on the off chance they might use 'em? Perhaps we should be asking if MT90 cruiser rear tires can be RETREADED and if so can you leave the rim inside during the process - perhaps if it's a heavy arsed 7-spoke 'MAG' wheel from a KZ440LTD, or an 11-spoke Harley wheel?

Yanno - when you look at the future of non-pneumatic tires, a "retread" might not be so far from reality, and a composite wheel with a "NERVI" style center-flange rim might not be far from the truth, either! I visualize 22nd-Century motorcycles having some sort of lurid urethane/polyethylene tires, similar to sk8board wheels, with either the cross-drilling / honeycomb structure of current non-pneumatic wheel designs, OR perhaps more interestingly, some sort of clear material full of effervescent bubbles, which would replace the surface tread 'sipes' as the material wore down. Then again, newly opened bubbles might just snatch & retain gravel & bits of asphalt, so that might not be such a fantastic idea. Then again maybe the road surfaces too, would be different?

Bah! Who am I kidding? The 22nd Century will begin not with a bang but with a whimper, and the most sophistimacated machinery on the "roads" would likely be the ancient Chinese wheel-barrow (with the mass arranged around the large central wheel) Depending of course, on whether one's fellow humans would have greater value as a food resource (hashtag "humanitarianism") or as beasts of burden, in which case we might see a few RICKSHAWS for the wealthy few.....

Well either way, I know I'd wanna run MINE with some original Akront "NERVI" rims!

*cough* Ahem. Yes:



Norbert - Is it possible that you still have the contact information for the Morad company? This could be a huge deal if I could convince 'em to run off another batch in a couple of sizes, 'cause there are lots of people looking for these, and I know this would make a HUGE difference to the '90s Ducati and '77-'88 Honda people.

Just picture if we could put a drop in the bucket to convince a few people to rebuild ORIGINAL equipment to a higher standard (which is to say 50% lighter yet wider "Comstar" wheels on Honda CB inline fours & VF V-fours & GL Gold-Wings etc, not to mention greater widths on the '90s Ducati specials or even better yet replica "MARVIC" wheels in 17" or 16.5" rather than just the 16" diameters!) - rather than building yet another "STARBUCKS RACER" with the fugly '90s-Y2K+ Crotch-Rocketry laid over the stripped bare bones of a '70s-'80s Classic Superbike - the USD forks & CNC billet shillet killit all purple anodized & prominently bedazzled all over the place.....

To see so-called "CLASSIC RACERS" return to a period-correct style.... And all possible because the best of the period's aftermarket running-gear could be incorporated into original equipment.

Look at what kind of services you can easily find for the wire-spoke wheels. So many options! Long dead stocks have come back into production, such as the Borrani rims - like you mentioned Norbert. I for one was quite flabbergasted when the Borrani rims came back - why oh why couldn't they have done it only a year or two prior???

For my daughter's "KZ440LOL" project, with a Suzuki 4LS drum laced into Borrani 3.00x16" "Rinforzatto" rims, for Maxi-Scooter tires in 110/70-16 & 140/70-16 radials kinda like scaled-down crotch-rocket tires, there was even a dual-compound rear from Michelin which I first conceived of the build - I'm on the 2nd attempt having lost it all in a house-fire back in 2013, but yeah between the first version where I managed to find NOS specimens for quite cheap which was what inspired the whole thing to be honest, and the 2nd version where I hunted to the four corners of the Earth to find used examples with the correct drilling patterns suitable for my chosen hubs (with the 36-spoke 4LS being a closest match to the XS650 rear drum, plus the 40-spoke 180mm and 36-spoke 160mm drum options for the KZ400/KZ440 rear wheel, plus my buddy's '75 Harley XLH chopper project (identically styled yet unmarked rims, yet which contain bead retention ridges and as such can be sealed for tubeless with aquarium silicone) With all of THAT going on, at least there was some CHANCE that what I found would fit! Nevertheless I think I bought something like EIGHT of the 3.00x16" rims before I found something appropriate for that 4LS drum, which my wheel builders were reluctant to complete even despite encouraging words a year or two prior - over the 'phone therefore difficult to "prove" to them that they'd agreed to do it! How ridiculous & obvious that it would've been the XS650 drum, but nevertheless quite unusual that somebody had taken the time & expense of putting an appropriate rim on the back end of an XS650 "Special" - their rear rim is normally 2.15" & later 2.5" wide - just like the KZ440LTD stock rear wheel!

(((As Excalibur owners ya'll would KNOW what this means! Can you imagine having to squeeze the MT90 style tires onto a 2.5" rim, let alone 2.15"??? Jeebuz, it's already pushing it with a 3.0" rim. And to think, there are 3.5x16" NERVI rims still out there - Well, if you believe the British eBay listings from a couple of months ago, where the seller immediately deleted their account after selling off their stocks.... I wasn't quick enough to grab any of 'em, but maybe that's a good thing, if they were fake? Well - EITHER way, it's a tantalizing thing to imagine a 3.50x16" or 4.25x16" rim on the back wheel, ennit? And how about 4.25x17", paired to a 3.0x17" up front. How about swapping to a replacement front hub for a DUAL-DISC brake package? To be able to rebuild these wheels, one might be able to replicate these relatively simple spokes and build an 18"/18" package with a more compact & lightweight rear hub - or perhaps a wider front wheel with another substitute hub incorporating a compact dush-drive etc. An Excalibur style wheel-set for a 500 racer? A pair of 16"/16" triple-disc wheels for the Dart???)))

Well I can only imagine what difficulty you must've had, getting those NOS rims drilled to suit your spokes! Even the Honda Montesa-Cota & CMX "Rebel 450" owners, with the reverse spoke wheels & nipples in the hub etc, even THEY have a difficult time finding somebody to rebuild a wheel for 'em. But composites? I've talked to Buchanan's & Woody's & Central-Wheel-Components (who oddly enough considering the name, don't actually sell any HUBS) and nobody was interested in TOUCHING wheels such as these!

But there are SOOO many different types of composite wheels other than the basic wire-spoke stuff. So much simpler to manufacture and rebuild than the wire-spoke stuff, so much less complex and of such a higher standard of performance. High volume of potential business, when you consider how many Honda "COMSTAR" wheels are rolling around out there, their owners so disappointed with their weight due to the D.I.D. brand rims -

I've had several wire-spoke D.I.D. brand rims and they've been so ridiculously heavy it's not even funny. The worst offenders are the Kawasaki KZ650CSR & KZ1000CSR with a 3.0x16" rear wheel on 48 spokes and a center-line air valve (and a ridiculously overbuilt & heavy as a boat anchor HUB - in both cases, where the disc-brake version is an even worse design than the drum) The high spoke count & central valve meaning all of those nipples are so close together they nearly touch that air valve - So the solution

Truly though, the HONDA market is what would justify a new batch of "NERVI" rims, with a trickle-down benefit to the high-dollar '70s Bevel-Twin & '90s "rubber-band" Ducati market, and of course the Excalibur - and some very interesting TRIALS bikes and MX-ers from the early '80s, plus the Malanca OB-ONE and several MZ's and Mondials, etc etc.

So why is it, THESE are the bits to be left on the ash-heap of history? As time moves forward, newer and newer bikes fall into the "Classic" definition, as survivors of earlier eras are snapped up for restoration & collections etc, the hobbyists move inexorably forward - and it's right NOW that the late '70s & early '80s, moving into late '80s & early '90s machines, are now becoming the most popular bikes to be wrenching on!

So it's NOW that the Morad company should "strike", while the iron's hot - or the extruded Aluminum channels/profiles as the case may be. If the late '70s early '80s HONDA market can be seized upon before it isn't TRENDY with the "HIPSTERS" anymore (Exactly when in history have there NOT been "hipsters" all over the motorcycle scene???) we might just see this idea take flight, with trickle-down benefits to the Ducati & Morini models. With good cross-over of course - the Honda people would want 18" diameter and the Ducati folks 16" - For starters, that is....



-Sigh.
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hombre
Posts: 625
Joined: 09 Apr 2006 16:15
Location: Amsterdam/Alessandria
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Re: WTB: Akront "NERVI" rims -

Post by hombre »

Removing tyres is no problem. I have a pair of those rims, so a 16 and 18". I also have another 18" but it's painted black. Tyre is already of that one.

PM me for details, price, shipping etc, thanks
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