Central Wheels get the Best of British treatment
With 120 years of experience, this Birmingham outfit has kept generations of riders rolling
When Central Wheel Components declare they can build wheels for everything from Adler to Zundapp, they’re only giving a hint at the scale of the operation. Sales director Richard Hoyland is now eight years into his second stint with the Birmingham company which can trace its roots back 120 years to 1897. Five generations of owner Warren Harding’s family have served with the firm. “We have around 25,000 rims in stock and anything from 5000 down of each type of spoke,” says Hoyland. “Just one of our spoke-making machines can turn out 10,000 an hour.” Classic owners will be familiar with the firm. Over many decades they have built a solid reputation supplying rims and spokes and reconditioning hubs. “I go to the Banbury Run and the majority of the bikes there will be on wheels we have built,” says Hoyland. If any further endorsement were required, Central build all of the wheels required by the National Motorcycle Museum. Racers in the Classic TT turn to Central too.
They’re about so much more than the classic market, however. Until Triumph took production off-shore in 2008 they were building up to a thousand wheels a week for them. The loss of the £1m-a-year Triumph contract might have sunk a less resilient outfit but Central focused their attentions elsewhere and started getting into motocross. Now the SM Pro range of hubs and rims are a burgeoning part of the business. “The stock wheels on crossers are very plain,” explains Hoyland. “We can build wheels with more colour and personality. Our hubs and rims can be anodised
and spokes powder-coated. Anodised components can be laser engraved too. The motocross guys like their bling.”
The off-road business is huge for Central, with 400 pairs of wheels being built and sent all around the globe every week. That took some of the sting out of losing the Triumph work, although Hoyland says that this was the only time in the company’s history they had to make anyone redundant.
Aside from its adaptability, he attributes Central’s success to two things. “Wheels are safety critical so we ensure they’re right. and if you give people good service they tell their friends and always come back.”