Originally Posted by
Jax Rhapsody
back in 2011 or 12 a member on Velospace took the wheel OFF a wheelchair, took the tire OFF the wheel, changed the bearings, drilled a hole for a valvestem, slapped on a 650b tire and placed the assembly on a fixie.
Once you change out the hub/bearings to mount it on a bike, a spoked wheelchair wheel isn't really any different than a bicycle wheel. In fact, when I was looking for rims to build up 650c wheels for my daughter's bike, I found exactly what I wanted on Sun's wheelchair component site:
Sun Premium Wheelchair Components - M14A Rim
...but a minor quibble: 650b tires have a 584 mm bead. I could be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, wheelchair tires & rims don't come in that size. There are a whole bunch of others it could've been.
Originally Posted by
Jax Rhapsody
...he used one of the generic black plastic seven spoke ones.
That complicates things a bit, though. ;-)