A NOTTS entrepreneur hopes to change cycling forever after reinventing the wheel.
Sam Pearce's creation, the Loopwheel, has internal springs instead of spokes, giving wheels a smooth ride over harsh kerbs and bumps.
It caused a storm when it was finally unveiled at a Bristol bike show last week after years of secretive development.
Sam, 44, and wife and business partner Gemma, 45, from Eakring – between Mansfield and Newark – now hope Loopwheels will go global.
A prototype of a folding bike with the revolutionary wheels was shown off by Sam and Gemma's nine-year-old son Fred in a show-and-tell session at Kneesall Primary School yesterday.
Sam said: "I love cycling, so I thought it would be awesome to ride a bike with in-wheel suspension.
"But it took many, many prototypes, designs and redesigns to get a wheel that really worked well.
"Then we had to put it through a lot of testing, so it's been over four years in development to get to the product you see today."
The idea came to him while he was sitting in an airport in 2007, watching parents jar rigid pram wheels over a bump.
He has designed the wheels for the folding bike market, which is popular with commuters. And word is already spreading among cycling enthusiasts on the internet.
The entrepreneurial couple run Jelly Products, a product design firm using Sam's skills in industrial design and Gemma's in strategy, marketing and finance.
The couple run most of the business from their home in the village but Sam also has an industrial unit at Boughton.
They are hoping to get production of the wheels off the ground using the website Kickstarter, which allows creative people to attract funding from backers, and have a £40,000 target to make it happen.
As of yesterday, the Loopwheels project was already 40 per cent funded after just four days – with £17,878 pledged.
Gemma said: "The level of interest is phenomenal. We are exhilarated and delighted with the response and have had e-mails from America and India."
