Patent ID: 8002362

Claim:
A one-piece, hollow bicycle wheel rim formed of fiber reinforced plastic having first structural reinforcing fibers in a thermoset plastic matrix; said rim having a spoke bed, angled side walls, braking surface walls and a tire well, with said tire well and braking surface walls joining at first and second apexes; said braking surface walls being formed of second structural reinforcing fibers in a thermoset plastic matrix such that the braking surfaces of said braking surface walls provide for a higher coefficient of friction when subject to application caliper brake pads than is the coefficient of friction of walls reinforced solely with said first reinforcing fibers; said first reinforcing fibers being aligned in a composite layup such that in the cured rim said first reinforcing fibers are contained within said resin matrix, said first reinforcing fibers are aligned to have a nominal line of substantially straight fibers in six layups, is spaced around the rim at substantially 60 degree arcs, so that the nominal line of fibers does not substantially deviate from parallel to a tangent to a circle defined by the outer edges of the rim; said rim is formed from a plurality of prepreg segments, with tire well pieces of said preforms tabbed to overlap to result , in the cured rim, in a solid walled, but hollow rim; said rim being formed from six prepreg segments per side, for a total of twelve, are formed surrounding a bladder, abutting or with slight overlap on each side and at the center plane, such that under curing pressure and temperature there is a continuous chemical bond in the preferred epoxy matrix so that in the cured rim the segments have said first fibers formed in arrays contained within said matrix, said arrays in said cured rim remaining intact and being aligned with expected loads when in the preferred 0 -45 -90 degree oriented fiber layups are used; said segments are staggered from side to side so that in the cured rim, the locations of overlap of the arrays, which correspond to the layup of seams in the uncured layups on one side do not line up transversely across from the locations of overlap of the arrays, which correspond to the layup of seams in the uncured layups on the other side of the continuous unidirectional fiber bundles in said spoke bed and apexes crossing from segment to segment to circumferentially reinforce areas of concentrated load.