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Shark Wheel to Reinvent Skateboarding Experience

posted by Woods on Friday May 23 2014, @03:52PM   
from the shark-is-the-best-kind-of-wheel dept.

buswolley writes:

A California-based company has a new kind of wheel for skateboards that delivers a novel shape and claims a special ride experience. This is the Shark Wheel, not circular, not square, but something more interesting. The wheels appear as square when in motion from a side view but the wheel geometry is more than that. The wheels feel circular to the rider, and viewing them along with more details may help to clear the mystique. The wheels are made of three strips each; these create a helical shape when they roll, and they form a sine wave pattern. When the wheels make contact with the ground, good things happen, say the team behind the wheels - the user gets speed, better grip, and a smoother ride.

• Don't forget rolling resistance (Score: 1) by Immerman on Saturday May 24 2014, @03:17PM

  by Immerman (3985) on Saturday May 24 2014, @03:17PM (#47117)

  Until you're going fast enough for air resistance to become a major factor, rolling resistance is the primary channel for energy loss. Part of that is determined by your bearings, but there are other factors at least as large. A lot of it is determined by the deformation of the wheels - as they roll the bottom side gets squished, converting kinetic energy into elastic potential energy (which you mostly get back) and the heat of deformation (which you don't). There's also adhesion between the wheels and the surface they're rolling over. Clearly if the wheels (or street) is covered in thick, sticky syrup you're going to slow down rapidly, but electrostatics and the van der Waals force have a similar, if less pronounced, effect.

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