Wheel for skateboards and roller skates

A wheel of molded plastic material having inboard and outboard end portions adapted to be inwardly and outwardly disposed on a vehicle and a central cylindrical aperture extending axially from end-to-end therethrough with a bearing member therein and a cylindrical tread surface around the outer periphery of the wheel, and annular groove means extending inwardly from the outboard end of the wheel for about three-eighths of the axial length of the wheel and providing a relatively thin flexible band of material between the groove means and the tread surface which in normal use will yield and flatten out against the ground to thereby increase the amount of tread upon the ground, the material between the groove means and the central aperture underlying the entire length of the thin flexible band of material and being substantially thicker, as measured radially, than the thin flexible band of material, the material of said wheel between said tread surface and said central aperture, save for said groove means and said central aperture, being solid.