![Glenndyne Designs Reinvents the Wheel](images/DailyArticles/March2010/GlenndyneDesigns/Glendynne-Designs-Wheels-007-Lead.jpg)
Glenndyne Designs Reinvents the Wheel
Story by Buck Manning
Photos by Jack Cofano
So I’m at the Cincinnati V-Twin Expo walking around in a surrounded-by-new-parts-daze-high when the lovely Jack Cofano comes rushing up to me out of nowhere, grabs me by the arm and starts yanking me off somewhere like a couple of crazed hobos in search of a hot pie on a windowsill while spewing words somewhat deliriously about something or other. Zigzagging across the exhibition hall and still being pulled around like a defiant three-year old in Walmart , all I could understand from his babbling was “You gotta see this, you really gotta see this, it’s gonna blow your mind.” Jack’s not the type of guy who really gives a damn about most new stuff and my techno-babble about products usually makes his eyes glaze over, so whatever we were headed to must be something pretty frakking special.
“Well whaddaya think? Are they cool or what?” said Jack when we finally reached the display booth of Glenndyne Design? All I could do was stare and take it all in and I had to agree with Jack (in my head, never give him something to brag about) that the totally-different-from-anything-else-there-is (dare I use the often incorrect and overused word “unique?”) wheels on display stands and also mounted on a very cool-looking dresser as well as a damn-fine hot rod bobber were a feast for the eyes. No they weren’t highly-polished show-chromed billet wheels with a dragon head or flame spokes or embedded jewels or flashing lights or whatever, but wheels featuring bowed-out spokes on each side of the hub cradling a complete caliper and rotor brake system mounted within. Like a complete conventional brake system that was quietly caged. Geez Louise these were stunning, not shocking, just stunningly good looking, but also had an air of looking mechanically smart too.
Affable Aaron Glenn, owner and head brainiac at Glenndyne Design, beamed like a proud father when we asked him for information and his somewhat “aw shucks” nice guy attitude was very pleasant to deal with as he answered all our probably silly questions. “I try and look at things that can hit all the different points from performance to an improvement in braking to light weight, things that can look better and perform better,” said Aaron. ”I’ve never really considered myself anything other than trying to do something different and I love what I do.” Not wanting to take up his precious show time at Cincy, I made arraignments to speak with him later for a more detailed explanation of the what, why, and how of the wheels you see pictured here.
Like most great inventions and discoveries of our time, the internal brake Glenndyne Design wheel almost came about by accident. “I’ve always liked refinement, cleaner ways to do things ending up in a simpler refined look. I was sitting in a waffle house in Las Vegas and I saw a bright yellow Ferrari F355 parked outside and noticed the wheels. You know, in European-style wheels you’ve got a positive offset with a big brake caliper and rotor showing through behind the wheel. I started thinking, ‘How could I make that for both sides, how could I get a bike wheel to look like that from both sides?’ I started sketching stuff out and I figured I could make this work,” said Glenn. “I bought an actual set of Ferrari wheels [18” and 19” pairs] on eBay and got ‘em back to the shop and started looking at ‘em. I cut them in half and figured I’d just fuse, weld the two spoked parts of the wheels together. Modifying from car wheels was easier and more economical than starting with a huge slug of billet and start making a bunch of stuff.”
Finishing a set of working prototype motorcycle wheels led Aaron to thinking about how to make this into a production item instead of having to scrounge up a set of four Ferrari wheels every time he wanted a pair for a bike. “I knew I needed convex shapes to clear the brakes. The cheapest way to do that was to forge that in a shape out of half-inch or five-eighths-inch aluminum/magnesium which is what we’re using for production sets. Then I figured out a way to cut the centers out of an All American Wheel Co. wheel blank, drill it for the faces, forge the faces and bolt ‘em up leaving clearance room to mount the axle assembly that holds the caliper bracket and locks into the front end.” The reason for locking the axle is very clear as Aaron explains, “It’s a matter of locking the axle so you don’t get any shift or twist under brake load. There’s a few things you have to figure out from an engineering standpoint as far as rotational twist and termination point from the front axle centerline to the caliper to make sure you don’t have too much leverage on it.”
Caliper mounting point is important as many other things are tied into this to make it work correctly. “There’s only a certain diameter rotor I could run, a 13” rotor that’s bigger than a Factory rotor, without rotating the caliper 180-degrees and using a perimeter rotor instead,” said Aaron. “It works the same way a normal wheel does, just inside out, You’ve got one hub with a bearing carrier that bolts to one face that holds the rotor solid, the caliper and the rest are just clearance issues up against the other side that also has a hub and bearing carrier that bolts to the other face.”
Living with an internal brake wheel is no different than a regular wheel. “The axle just runs straight through with standard DOT fittings. Fluid comes in the axle and we’ve got quick-disconnects for the brake lines so people can disconnect them, remove the wheel, and not have to re-bleed. All maintenance issues like tire mounting and balancing are the same,” said Aaron. “You can easily get your hands in there for brake pad swaps with our five-spoke design. We have some ten-spoke designs coming out that have a removable, triangulated section that also allows you to do whatever you have to do to the caliper. We’re also working with ways to cover the whole wheel up and add that step to the machining where one face has the ability to have a section unbolt out of it. We’re just trying to think of everything, doing what we can, when we can.”
There are many advantages of Aaron’s design other than being cool beyond all belief. “If you took a standard design five-spoke billet wheel and compared that to what we’re doing, ours weighs about thirteen-percent less and by the time you put in our lightweight hubs which are really machined hollow coupled with the hardware we have, you’re another five- or six-percent lighter, said Aaron. “Our designs by being curved are actually stronger too, like the way a bridge is arched. You get a whole lot more strength out of an arched bridge than a straight one. That we’ve involved two sets of curved spokes together, you get numbers that go through the roof as far as strength is concerned.”
Something that can’t be casually dismissed are the actual braking components Aaron used like the top-notch, super-lightweight Lyndall Racing composite rotors that we at Barnett’s can personally attest to being quite a superior rotor especially compared to Motor Company discs and legendary Wildwood calipers. “Greg at Wilwood worked with me on the calipers. We took a sprint car caliper rated for a 2,000 pound car and tailored it to fit a standard motorcycle mount. I wanted to be able to tell people that these calipers have pistons that are forty-percent larger than a standard Factory caliper,” said Aaron. “So now you’ve got more power with the big bore pistons behind the stopping plus a lighter wheel plus a bigger, lighter rotor.”
So how does the internal brake wheel work out there in the real world? “People can’t really imagine the difference in what it does by putting the rotor in the centerline of the wheel because it literally squats the bike down when you use it, especially when you’ve got both on the front and rear doing the same thing. The bike really wants to hunker down,” said Aaron. “They handle great, they work great.” And, let’s not forget that they’re statically lighter which more importantly translates into less turning weight that equals quicker handling, accelerating, and less unsprung weight that your shocks have to deal with.
As far as the all important in the custom world, personalized finishes go, Aaron said, “We have powdercoat options, anodizing, and of course, chrome. I wanted to do what the high-end automotive wheels have done with multi-piece wheels, to have unlimited options on how you want the wheels finished out,” said Aaron. ”From a chrome lip, a chrome face, all chrome to a color face and a chrome lip or ceramic-coated lip or . . . Hey, the sky’s the limit. And with my ability to do paintwork, which is how I originally started in this business and still do today, we can do whatever anybody wants.” You’re also not limited in sizes for your application either as Aaron has wheels ranging from 17” to 26” in diameter and in unlimited widths.
All I know is that you could put a set of Aaron’s wheels on a showroom stock Harley, take it to a local show or gathering, and the crowd would be gathered ten deep around your otherwise MoCo stocker. From the euro-style curved-spoke design of the wheels to what’s imbedded in them, these wheels are to eyes like magnets are to ferrous metal. Find out more about getting a set for your Harley or custom by visiting www.glenndynedesign.com or by giving Glenn a call at 405-401-8707. Another option is to call up the owner of the scrumptious bagger shown here (Jack’s show favorite) belonging to Richard King who just happens to be the owner of The Shop (a full service Harley shop) in Yukon, Oklahoma, (www.theshop.us.com) and as of now, the only certified installer other than Aaron of Glenndyne Design internal brake wheels in the USA.