Motorcycle wheels

I am sure when looking in the books and magazines you will have seen some nice chrome wheels and thought "thats what I want", well if you are on a tight budget you may find you have to aim a little lower. These Chrome wheels are usually very expensive so you may have to either refurb the wheels of your donor bike or buy second hand. First lets talk about refurbished wheels - you could have them refurbished so they look new or you could have them powder coated or sprayed any colour you want, if your budget allows you could probably get them chromed!.

What ever you decide having the wheels refurbished will improve the look of your bike and will make you feel proud when the bike is finished and you stand back admiring your new wheels.

If you are buying secondhand or custom wheels - you will have to bear in mind the sizes. Now, there is a lot to think about, "will these wheels and tyres fit in to the frame", "can I line every thing up so that the chain or belt does not hit the wheel/tyre". Remember when a tyre is under presure the walls of the tyre will bulge so if your wheel only just fits the bike as soon as you sit on it the tyre will bulge and you will start to have problems. You will have to make your own wheel spacers to align the wheel correctly within the frame. Will the new wheels and tyres fit under the rear mudguard/fender? If you are keeping your donor bike frame as the basis for your custom motorcycle the easiest option is to use the wheels that came with it as you already know they fit and are correctly spaced. Also if you are to modify your standard frame to make it hardtail as long as you keep the dimensions the same as the donor bikes swingarm you will know that the wheel will fit. Lots of people build great looking custom motorcycles by hardtailing their donor bike and using the standard wheels, you could always change these later when money allows.

The 4 images below are some of the more common on production motorcycles the last picture is a refurbish suzuki wheel I bought for 1 of my projects.

Here are a few images of wheels on the market they are from American distributors.

There are some links to wheel distributirs in the UK below

UK Wheels distributors

Demon-tweeks

www.motorcycle-road-and-race.co.uk

Wheel builders http://www.central-wheel.co.uk