design skools have had a stiffie for the donut wheel for as long as i can remember.
it's against their religion that they can't bring themselves to draw a normal wheel.
what are the supposed benefits?
guess one ride would tell ya if ur fillings all fell out.
would be cool to have at least one hubless bike tho.
i think it's more the case that it's simply different rather than cool.
if the hula-hoop bicycle wheel had been invented first, making it the the 'normal' wheel, would we be ooh-ing & aah-ing over what a breakthru concept spoked wheels are?
there's a lot of things like that, just different for different sake.
i still can't figure out the popularity of text messaging.
if teletype was the only form of long distance communication (after supplanting telegraphing morse code), i would expect that it too should quickly disappear with the invention of the telephone where u can
actually hear! the other person's voice (amazing).
yet here we are, seems like a step backward to me & i wonder if a hubless design might also.
btw, wheels aside, that boardman frame is a straight clone of a softride rocket.
strange that he didn't copy the lotus frame that won him olympic gold.