Too many spokes

Quoted message said:

Skippy Peanut Butter said:

Quoted message said:

Can't you just ask without blurting out misinformation to show that
you really don't know much about it? This is a mix of MAS (male
answer syndrome) and wanting to find an answer. MAS: Give an answer
whether you know anything about it or not.

Quoted message said:

Is this an insult? Wanting to find an answer - what a strange
reason for asking a question! I've already apologied for comments
in the original posting that were wrong. There is a reason i put
E&OE at the bottom. If I knew everything, I wouldn't ask questions.

So why do you tell us how these things work if you want to know. This
is old hat on this forum. We get a long dissertation on a technical
subject with a faint disclaimer at the very end of "That's right isn't
it?" Just ask and let it ride.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The rim is as weak as its smallest cross section and it doesn't get
worse with more spokes, spokes that give the rim radial rigidity.
A bare rim can be deflected manually more than 100 times what it
does in a wheel under heavy loading.

Quoted message said:

No chance for crack propogation from a drilled hole? If so the
probablity of such a failure increases with the number of holes.

Not if the rim has sockets, but then you may have noticed that Mavic
got rid of sockets... they weigh too much for the modern rider.
Before Mavic scrapped the MA-2, the western world's most common rim,
all good rims had sockets and rim cracking was reserved for ultra
light models. Rim cracking is dependent on bearing area of spoke
loads (no sockets) and anodizing, which is hard brittle skin on
aluminum.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As for spoke tension, it is only needed to keep spokes from going
slack and the more of them the less individual loading they carry
to become slack. With your argument, taken to the limit, the best
wheel would have no spokes and no holes, not even a valve stem
hole.

Quoted message said:

Yes, if reduced to absurdity. Things cardinal in nature have a
tendancy not to work with either 0 or 1 elements.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So get some 10-spoke wheels and use them. You seem to have reasons
in favor of that.

Quoted message said:

Have I? What makes you say that? As it happens, I haven't and it's
not what I'm asking.

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Don't worry, the best number of spokes for durable 700c wheels was
pragmatically determined a long time ago at 36.

Quoted message said:

'A long time ago' is sort of my question. It is just possible that
components have improved in that time. If so, might the 'best
number' be 32, or maybe 28?

I don't see any. As I said, I am riding on rims from the past and
have no cracks nor do I have spoke failures that were not cause by
foreign objects getting into the wheel. These are ancient spokes and
hubs as bicycling goes. As another contributor mentioned, 28 and
32-spoke wheels have been around for a long time as well but riders
were aware of the drawbacks.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As you see, cracking rims are part of the landscape today (and
formerly were not) with most riders believing that this is to be
expected. Today many people with extra money are erasing the long
development of reliable bicycle wheels. Mavic appears to be
pandering to those people.

Quoted message said:

I find it hard to believe that there is a company driven push to
produce parts that fail so easily. There must a market pull in some
form given the duration of the fad.

Naive, is the word. Can you imagine what motivated Mavic to
discontinue the MA-2 and offer hard anodized, welded, machined rims in
its place at three times the price? After all, that came right after
Look Ski bindings bought Mavic, a reliable old rim company.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> (Hope this won't start another rant-fest, and that it's not FAQ)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not sure what you had in mind but by its nature this is a
troll, starting as it does.

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative for
a certain usage.

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

Jobst Brandt

jobst.brandt%20(atstanfordalumnidotorg).youaremighty.comjobst.brandt%20(atstanfordalumnidotorg).youaremighty.comOpen ↗

Sorni said:

Quoted message said:

Skippy Peanut Butter said:

> Can't you just ask without blurting out misinformation to show that
> you really don't know much about it? This is a mix of MAS (male
> answer syndrome) and wanting to find an answer. MAS: Give an answer
> whether you know anything about it or not.

Quoted message said:

Is this an insult? Wanting to find an answer - what a strange
reason for asking a question! I've already apologied for comments
in the original posting that were wrong. There is a reason i put
E&OE at the bottom. If I knew everything, I wouldn't ask questions.

So why do you tell us how these things work if you want to know. This
is old hat on this forum. We get a long dissertation on a technical
subject with a faint disclaimer at the very end of "That's right isn't
it?" Just ask and let it ride.

Quoted message said:

> The rim is as weak as its smallest cross section and it doesn't get
> worse with more spokes, spokes that give the rim radial rigidity.
> A bare rim can be deflected manually more than 100 times what it
> does in a wheel under heavy loading.

Quoted message said:

No chance for crack propogation from a drilled hole? If so the
probablity of such a failure increases with the number of holes.

Not if the rim has sockets, but then you may have noticed that Mavic
got rid of sockets... they weigh too much for the modern rider.
Before Mavic scrapped the MA-2, the western world's most common rim,
all good rims had sockets and rim cracking was reserved for ultra
light models. Rim cracking is dependent on bearing area of spoke
loads (no sockets) and anodizing, which is hard brittle skin on
aluminum.

Quoted message said:

> As for spoke tension, it is only needed to keep spokes from going
> slack and the more of them the less individual loading they carry
> to become slack. With your argument, taken to the limit, the best
> wheel would have no spokes and no holes, not even a valve stem
> hole.

Quoted message said:

Yes, if reduced to absurdity. Things cardinal in nature have a
tendancy not to work with either 0 or 1 elements.

Quoted message said:

> So get some 10-spoke wheels and use them. You seem to have reasons
> in favor of that.

Quoted message said:

Have I? What makes you say that? As it happens, I haven't and it's
not what I'm asking.

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

Quoted message said:

> Don't worry, the best number of spokes for durable 700c wheels was
> pragmatically determined a long time ago at 36.

Quoted message said:

'A long time ago' is sort of my question. It is just possible that
components have improved in that time. If so, might the 'best
number' be 32, or maybe 28?

I don't see any. As I said, I am riding on rims from the past and
have no cracks nor do I have spoke failures that were not cause by
foreign objects getting into the wheel. These are ancient spokes and
hubs as bicycling goes. As another contributor mentioned, 28 and
32-spoke wheels have been around for a long time as well but riders
were aware of the drawbacks.

Quoted message said:

> As you see, cracking rims are part of the landscape today (and
> formerly were not) with most riders believing that this is to be
> expected. Today many people with extra money are erasing the long
> development of reliable bicycle wheels. Mavic appears to be
> pandering to those people.

Quoted message said:

I find it hard to believe that there is a company driven push to
produce parts that fail so easily. There must a market pull in some
form given the duration of the fad.

Naive, is the word. Can you imagine what motivated Mavic to
discontinue the MA-2 and offer hard anodized, welded, machined rims in
its place at three times the price? After all, that came right after
Look Ski bindings bought Mavic, a reliable old rim company.

Quoted message said:

>> (Hope this won't start another rant-fest, and that it's not FAQ)

Quoted message said:

> I'm not sure what you had in mind but by its nature this is a
> troll, starting as it does.

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative for
a certain usage.

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

Jobst Brandt

jobst.brandt%20(atstanfordalumnidotorg).youaremighty.comjobst.brandt%20(atstanfordalumnidotorg).youaremighty.comOpen ↗

LOL!!

.....and remember, he stoops to conquer!

Skippy says...

Quoted message said:

Is this an insult? Wanting to find an answer - what a strange reason for
asking a question! I've already apologied for comments in the original
posting that were wrong. There is a reason i put E&OE at the bottom. If I
knew everything, I wouldn't ask questions.

For an encore to "The Bicycle Wheel", Jobst intends to write his own
version of "How to Make Friends and Influence People." I know I'll be
camping outside Barnes & Nobles for my copy.

Quoted message said:

Oh! Practicality of equipment has not been a subject on wreck.bike in
a long time. Wait, it's weight and carbon that counts.

I keep waiting for someone to ask where they can get carbon components
that employ only Carbon 12 because they don't want any of that heavy
Carbon 14 isotope.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Skippy said:

Quoted message said:

As you see, cracking
rims are part of the landscape today (and formerly were not) with most
riders believing that this is to be expected. Today many people with
extra money are erasing the long development of reliable bicycle
wheels. Mavic appears to be pandering to those people.

I find it hard to believe that there is a company driven push to produce
parts that fail so easily. There must a market pull in some form given the
duration of the fad.

Alas!
We do not live in the perfectness of Eden's Garden, and as long as
companies are for better or worse tied to profits, it will be much
better for them to sell hightech things twice a year than lowtech ones
once every 12 years...

The above has been much proven with wheels, from the FORE threads
ripping out of the rim, to the PTFE ring used in place of a
way-too-heavy ball bearing in the freewheel worn after 500km, passing
by the breakage of the 20 aluminium spokes, and not to mention tension
discrepancies on new wheels exceeding 1 and 1/2 tone... All these are
Mavic examples, because it's what we see most here in France, but does
apply to other manufacturers going the same way, of course. But this is
finally another debate!
And it is simply up to you not to buy high-tech disposable wheels.

To answer your more specific question about rim cracking around hole,
I'll second Jobst : mechanically, the problem is the same whether ther
is 1 or 40 holes, and it does not worsen until holes are close enough
to have stress buildup between them. I would think that this does not
occur before something like 64 or 72 holes...
Do not forget that in a built and tensioned wheels, holes are partly
supported by the spoke nipple (it is one of the parts of the eyelet to
help that) - you must not think of it as a hollow hole.

As Jobst said, the "rim cracking around hole" problem was very rare at
the time of 36 spoke wheels, and did appear with 2 factors :
- spoke count decreasing, because the load condition implies to have
more tension in the spokes for them not to slacken, and therefore
_more_ stress around the holes under a certain spoke count (may be the
near-optimum 32 or 28?),
- the (technically unjustifiable) omission of double eyelets on
high-end rims.

Werehatrack said:

Quoted message said:

Oh! Practicality of equipment has not been a subject on wreck.bike in
a long time. Wait, it's weight and carbon that counts.

I keep waiting for someone to ask where they can get carbon components
that employ only Carbon 12 because they don't want any of that heavy
Carbon 14 isotope.

Will the new marketing slogan be, "98.9% C12" or (for carbon from
petroleum) "99.9% C12?"? Or maybe, "Carbon frame, <0.01% heavy carbon"?

Pat

Sheldon Brown said:

Jobst Brandt said:

Don't worry, the best number of spokes for durable 700c wheels was
pragmatically determined a long time ago at 36.

36 is good, but I think the Brits were even better off with 32/40.

Nobody ever has trouble with front wheels, it's the rears that fail, so
it really makes sense to have more in back, especially with
derailer-type wheels where the rear is weakened by dishing.

The older British bikes even managed to use the same spoke length
front/rear by going cross 3 in front, cross 4 in back.

If you have the same number of spokes front/rear, either the rear wheel
is weaker than it should be, or the front is heavier than it needs to be.

As a practical mater, however, with currently available parts, 36/36 or
32/36 makes more sense.

I'm a proud builder/rider of my 32/36 Velocity Deep Vs -- built my bro
in law some too...

Only 1000 miles each on the four wheels so far, but they still pluck
the same notes on the spokes. He and I both push 200 lbs (though I'm at
a buck eighty five lately for some reason).

-Mike

Quoted message said:

Skippy Peanut Butter said:

Quoted message said:

Can't you just ask without blurting out misinformation to show that
you really don't know much about it? This is a mix of MAS (male
answer syndrome) and wanting to find an answer. MAS: Give an answer
whether you know anything about it or not.

Quoted message said:

Is this an insult? Wanting to find an answer - what a strange reason for
asking a question! I've already apologied for comments in the original
posting that were wrong. There is a reason i put E&OE at the bottom. If I
knew everything, I wouldn't ask questions.

So why do you tell us how these things work if you want to know. This
is old hat on this forum. We get a long dissertation on a technical
subject with a faint disclaimer at the very end of "That's right isn't
it?" Just ask and let it ride.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The rim is as weak as its smallest cross section and it doesn't get
worse with more spokes, spokes that give the rim radial rigidity.
A bare rim can be deflected manually more than 100 times what it
does in a wheel under heavy loading.

Quoted message said:

No chance for crack propogation from a drilled hole? If so the
probablity of such a failure increases with the number of holes.

Not if the rim has sockets, but then you may have noticed that Mavic
got rid of sockets... they weigh too much for the modern rider.
Before Mavic scraped the NA-2, the western world's most common rim,
all good rims had sockets and rim cracking was reserved for ultra
light models. Rim cracking is dependent on bearing area of spoke
loads (no sockets) and anodizing, a hard brittle skin on aluminum
rims.

oh, you're quite shameless. or stupid. many many times jobst, it's
been pointed out that the cracking evidenced in rims is NOT the same as
that seen when initiated by anodizing. therefore your supposition,
[which was (incredibly) based on a totally inappropriate dye-penetrant
test btw], is WRONG. now, go to the library and look into extrusion
faults will you?

and correction of your immortal words "[spoke] tension as high as the
rim can bear" will do more for longevity of the western world's bike
wheels than any amount of your blaming rim manufacturers.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As for spoke tension, it is only needed to keep spokes from going
slack and the more of them the less individual loading they carry
to become slack. With your argument, taken to the limit, the best
wheel would have no spokes and no holes, not even a valve stem
hole.

Quoted message said:

Yes, if reduced to absurdity. Things cardinal in nature have a
tendancy not to work with either 0 or 1 elements.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So get some 10-spoke wheels and use them. You seem to have reasons in
favor of that.

Quoted message said:

Have I? What makes you say that? As it happens, I haven't and it's not
what I'm asking.

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Don't worry, the best number of spokes for durable 700c wheels was
pragmatically determined a long time ago at 36.

Quoted message said:

'A long time ago' is sort of my question. It is just possible that
components have improved in that time. If so, might the 'best number' be
32, or maybe 28?

I don't see any. As I said, I am riding on rims from the past and
have no cracks nor do I have spoke failures that were not cause by
foreign objects getting into the wheel. These are ancient spokes and
hubs as bicycling goes. As another contributor mentioned, 28 and
32-spoke wheels have been around for a long time as well but riders
were aware of the drawbacks.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As you see, cracking rims are part of the landscape today (and
formerly were not) with most riders believing that this is to be
expected. Today many people with extra money are erasing the long
development of reliable bicycle wheels. Mavic appears to be
pandering to those people.

Quoted message said:

I find it hard to believe that there is a company driven push to
produce parts that fail so easily. There must a market pull in some
form given the duration of the fad.

Naive, is the word. Can you imagine what motivated Mavic to
discontinue the MA-2 and offer hard anodized, welded, machined rims in
its place at three times the price? After all, that came right after
Look Ski bindings bought Mavic, a reliable old rim company.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>(Hope this won't start another rant-fest, and that it's not FAQ)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not sure what you had in mind but by its nature this is a
troll, starting as it does.

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative for
a certain usage.

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

if your audience /didn't/ absorb misinformation, you'd never sell a
single book.

Quoted message said:

Skippy said:

Quoted message said:

As you see, cracking
rims are part of the landscape today (and formerly were not) with most
riders believing that this is to be expected. Today many people with
extra money are erasing the long development of reliable bicycle
wheels. Mavic appears to be pandering to those people.

I find it hard to believe that there is a company driven push to produce
parts that fail so easily. There must a market pull in some form given the
duration of the fad.

Alas!
We do not live in the perfectness of Eden's Garden, and as long as
companies are for better or worse tied to profits, it will be much
better for them to sell hightech things twice a year than lowtech ones
once every 12 years...

The above has been much proven with wheels, from the FORE threads
ripping out of the rim, to the PTFE ring used in place of a
way-too-heavy ball bearing in the freewheel worn after 500km, passing
by the breakage of the 20 aluminium spokes, and not to mention tension
discrepancies on new wheels exceeding 1 and 1/2 tone... All these are
Mavic examples, because it's what we see most here in France, but does
apply to other manufacturers going the same way, of course. But this is
finally another debate!
And it is simply up to you not to buy high-tech disposable wheels.

To answer your more specific question about rim cracking around hole,
I'll second Jobst : mechanically, the problem is the same whether ther
is 1 or 40 holes, and it does not worsen until holes are close enough
to have stress buildup between them. I would think that this does not
occur before something like 64 or 72 holes...
Do not forget that in a built and tensioned wheels, holes are partly
supported by the spoke nipple (it is one of the parts of the eyelet to
help that) - you must not think of it as a hollow hole.

As Jobst said, the "rim cracking around hole" problem was very rare at
the time of 36 spoke wheels, and did appear with 2 factors :
- spoke count decreasing, because the load condition implies to have
more tension in the spokes for them not to slacken, and therefore
_more_ stress around the holes under a certain spoke count (may be the
near-optimum 32 or 28?),
- the (technically unjustifiable) omission of double eyelets on
high-end rims.

the main reason there was never any cracking around spoke holes in the
old days was because jobst hadn't written his book yet. then
publication propagated this extraordinary concept of spoke tension "as
high as the rim can bear" in the bizarrely mistaken belief that
increasing tension means increasing wheel strength. and hence rim
cracking became an immediate industry-wide problem.

the only tangible thing with which jobst can really be given credit in
this whole fiasco is the birth of the pre-built wheel - it's the only
means by which a manufacturer has any chance of control against abuse of
their product.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Skippy Peanut Butter writes:

Another attempt at insult, or possibly humour? Not exactly effective as
either.

Quoted message said:

[edit]

Quoted message said:

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased reliability
becomes small enough not to matter for a certain application. I'm not
trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has been suggested by you as a
historic value. 'It's the way we've always done it' isn't necessarily the
optimum. As you have 'noted' rim construction has changed. I am led to
believe that spokes have changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

[edit]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative for
a certain usage.

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

Jobst Brandt

It's still not a troll.

I'm not seeing much evidence on your part here, so I'd be foolish to absorb
what you've written.

Skippy
E&OE

Skippy said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased
reliability becomes small enough not to matter for a certain
application.

What is your application?

Quoted message said:

I'm not trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has been
suggested by you as a historic value. 'It's the way we've always
done it' isn't necessarily the optimum. As you have 'noted' rim
construction has changed. I am led to believe that spokes have
changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

The amount of dishing has increased too and spokes still break and wheels
still buckle. If your rear wheel has 32 spokes, you're practically riding
on just 16 of them, almost. I've experienced problems even with 36-spoke
9-speed rear wheels, so I'm not going to opt for an even less reliable
wheel just to save 20 grams, especially as a problem that couldn't be
fixed by the roadside would cause me a great deal of inconvenience. Frame
clearance has reduced too, meaning you may not get your wheel to go round
after a spoke has broken, even after adjusting other spokes to try and
compensate.

I suppose it's different if you are racing or have someone standing by all
the time ready to drive out 40 miles or however far away from home you
are.

~PB

Old Codger writes: Back when I was young, we used to use 48-spoke hubs
on our tandems!

"Pete Biggs" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Skippy said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased
reliability becomes small enough not to matter for a certain
application.

What is your application?

A front wheel for a road bike (20lbs) with rider of 170lbs. This would be a
training wheel, with racing pretentions of course!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has been
suggested by you as a historic value. 'It's the way we've always
done it' isn't necessarily the optimum. As you have 'noted' rim
construction has changed. I am led to believe that spokes have
changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

The amount of dishing has increased too and spokes still break and wheels
still buckle. If your rear wheel has 32 spokes, you're practically riding
on just 16 of them, almost. I've experienced problems even with 36-spoke
9-speed rear wheels, so I'm not going to opt for an even less reliable
wheel just to save 20 grams, especially as a problem that couldn't be
fixed by the roadside would cause me a great deal of inconvenience. Frame
clearance has reduced too, meaning you may not get your wheel to go round
after a spoke has broken, even after adjusting other spokes to try and
compensate.

Indeed. And as some have posted here dual-pivot brakes don't follow the rim
when it's out of whack. For sake of argument here, might we consider
anything that requires opening the QR on the brake, or getting the key out
would be a failure.

Quoted message said:

I suppose it's different if you are racing or have someone standing by all
the time ready to drive out 40 miles or however far away from home you
are.

~PB

Also true. I don't have a personal team car, unfortunately. Perhaps I
could make money running a 'rescue' car for all the unreliable wheels
around. Perhaps it could be yellow with 'Mavic' on the side!

Skippy
E&OE

Skippy Peanut Butter said:

Another attempt at insult, or possibly humour? Not exactly
effective as either.

So what is your name if you don't like aliases.

Quoted message said:

[edit]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

Quoted message said:

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased
reliability becomes small enough not to matter for a certain
application. I'm not trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has
been suggested by you as a historic value. 'It's the way we've
always done it' isn't necessarily the optimum. As you have 'noted'
rim construction has changed. I am led to believe that spokes have
changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

Mostly hubs and rims have changed for the worse.

I explained why 36 spokes is a reasonable number. It is not historic
but rather a number pragmatically arrived upon. Just because
expensive wheels with fewer spokes are promoted through various venues
doesn't mean they are a reasonable solution for general use. Most
people who respond to the new wheel syndrome get no benefits from them
but carry the unreliability that we read about so often here.

Quoted message said:

[edit]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative
for a certain usage.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

Quoted message said:

It's still not a troll.

Quoted message said:

I'm not seeing much evidence on your part here, so I'd be foolish to
absorb what you've written.

The evidence is in the wheel complaints you can read here in this
space, my comments are supported by these failures.

Jobst Brandt

Skippy said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Skippy Peanut Butter writes:

Another attempt at insult, or possibly humour? Not exactly effective as
either.

[edit]

Quoted message said:

How many spokes are you trying to justify?

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased reliability
becomes small enough not to matter for a certain application. I'm not
trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has been suggested by you as a
historic value. 'It's the way we've always done it' isn't necessarily the
optimum. As you have 'noted' rim construction has changed. I am led to
believe that spokes have changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

of course they have. i ride a pair of mavic cosmos wheels. they're 28
spoke rear, 24 spoke front, i weigh 205#, and the wheels remain
perfectly true. i had to re-rim them a few months ago because of a
pothole incident, but the spokes and hubs are still excellent after two
winters of wet commuting.

the most important feature of these wheels are the use of straight pull
spokes which eliminate the single most fundamental problem with spoke
fatigue, that of bending at the spoke elbow. once the fatigue is
eliminated, a lower spoke count is perfectly satisfactory. all this
b.s. about 36 spokes dates back to the old days when spokes were much
inferior and broke constantly. but you won't get jobst to acknowledge
that because it blows holes in one of his pet theories about how he can
eliminate fatigue with spells and incantations.

Quoted message said:

[edit]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Troll? No. If you really thought this was a troll message, you
wouldn't have responded, would you? I didn't want people ranting
about how [censored] box wheels are. I think that's been done to death.
I was merely asking if the '36' might now be a bit conservative for
a certain usage.

At times I find responding to trolls like this one with some
corrective comments appropriate, lest the reading audience blandly
absorbs its misinformation.

Jobst Brandt

It's still not a troll.

I'm not seeing much evidence on your part here, so I'd be foolish to absorb
what you've written.

steady on there skippy - you'll be burned as a heretic if you state the
obvious like that. folks round here like to think the emperor is
clothed - so you'd better fall into line there, y'heah?

Quoted message said:

Skippy
E&OE

jim beam said:

i ride a pair of mavic cosmos wheels. they're 28
spoke rear, 24 spoke front, i weigh 205#, and the wheels remain
perfectly true. i had to re-rim them a few months ago because of a
pothole incident, but the spokes and hubs are still excellent after
two winters of wet commuting.

Would stronger wheels survived that pothole?

~PB

Skippy said:

"Pete Biggs" <[email hidden]>
wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Skippy said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

> How many spokes are you trying to justify?

I was asking at what point the dimishing return in increased
reliability becomes small enough not to matter for a certain
application.

What is your application?

A front wheel for a road bike (20lbs) with rider of 170lbs. This
would be a training wheel, with racing pretentions of course!

I'm just a bit lighter and happy enough with 32 front, though JB puts up
an interesting argument for 36.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not trying to justify anything. 36 spokes has been
suggested by you as a historic value. 'It's the way we've always
done it' isn't necessarily the optimum. As you have 'noted' rim
construction has changed. I am led to believe that spokes have
changed for the better. Hubs may have changed too.

The amount of dishing has increased too and spokes still break and
wheels still buckle. If your rear wheel has 32 spokes, you're
practically riding on just 16 of them, almost. I've experienced
problems even with 36-spoke 9-speed rear wheels, so I'm not going to
opt for an even less reliable wheel just to save 20 grams,
especially as a problem that couldn't be fixed by the roadside would
cause me a great deal of inconvenience. Frame clearance has reduced
too, meaning you may not get your wheel to go round after a spoke
has broken, even after adjusting other spokes to try and compensate.

Indeed. And as some have posted here dual-pivot brakes don't follow
the rim when it's out of whack. For sake of argument here, might we
consider anything that requires opening the QR on the brake, or
getting the key out would be a failure.

It woud be a failure but not a very serious one. Personally, I wouldn't
be too bothered as long as I could carry on riding the bike. Trouble is,
with minimal-clearance frames, the wheel may not turn even if the brake
was removed as the tyre jams in the stays.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I suppose it's different if you are racing or have someone standing
by all the time ready to drive out 40 miles or however far away from
home you are.

Also true. I don't have a personal team car, unfortunately. Perhaps
I could make money running a 'rescue' car for all the unreliable
wheels around. Perhaps it could be yellow with 'Mavic' on the side!

Please do, then I could switch to 28 spoke wheels :-)

~PB

jim beam said:

i ride a pair of mavic cosmos wheels. they're 28
spoke rear, 24 spoke front, i weigh 205#, and the wheels remain
perfectly true. [...]

the most important feature of these wheels are the use of straight pull
spokes which eliminate the single most fundamental problem with spoke
fatigue, that of bending at the spoke elbow.

You imply then that fatigue comes from shear only, not pure tension, as
a straight spoke has the same (or may be worse, depending on the exact
geometry of hub attachment) stress concentration at its head, where it
sits in the hub, than a .
That mechanical theory is not widely supported...

To be more particular about the cosmos wheels, it seems a rule by
Mavic's that the lower the product price, the better the resistance
;o).
Frankly, the examples I gave above were mostly found on high-end wheels
(CrossMax SL or some Ksyrium). That supports the theory that the higher
the spoke count, the more resistant the wheel, as a Ksyrium wheel
sports only 18/20 spokes ;o))).

[email hidden] a écrit :

Quoted message said:

jim beam said:

i ride a pair of mavic cosmos wheels. they're 28
spoke rear, 24 spoke front, i weigh 205#, and the wheels remain
perfectly true. [...]

the most important feature of these wheels are the use of straight pull
spokes which eliminate the single most fundamental problem with spoke
fatigue, that of bending at the spoke elbow.

You imply then that fatigue comes from shear only, not pure tension, as
a straight spoke has the same (or may be worse, depending on the exact
geometry of hub attachment) stress concentration at its head, where it
sits in the hub, than a .
That mechanical theory is not widely supported...

Why do I get the impression, that if straight-pull spokes had been the
longtime standard, you would be suggesting that spoke elbows are a
miserable invention that came about to save wheelbuilders some lacing
time cost ? Are you saying that bent metal, with residual stress,
requiring expert manipulation after building, that tears hub flanges is
the right way to go ?

--

Sandy

The above is guaranteed 100% free of sarcasm, denigration, snotty
remarks, indifference, platitudes, fuming demands that "you do the
math", conceited visions of a better world on wheels according to
[insert NAME here].

Sandy said:

Why do I get the impression, that if straight-pull spokes had been the
longtime standard, you would be suggesting that spoke elbows are a
miserable invention that came about to save wheelbuilders some lacing
time cost ?

[teasing mode]The fact is that spoke elbows are the long-time
standard... [/teasing mode]
And btw, I've never laced a straight-spoke wheel but I would think it
is slightly easier?

Quoted message said:

Are you saying that bent metal, with residual stress,
requiring expert manipulation after building, that tears hub flanges is
the right way to go ?

Not quite... But a few things came to my mind :
- the fact that the spoke elbows tears a bit of the hub flange might be
a favourable thing about stress concentration in this area, by
extending the supported area of the spoke,
- the fact that better metallurgy techniques can reduce residual
stresses in bent spokes.
To the latter regard, it might be significant that spokes fail
generally just after the elbow, at the end of the section supported by
the hub flange, and not in the elbow itself.

Otoh, you are right in pointing that the "pre-stressing" required
during wheel tensioning, to ensure all spoke elbows sit rightly in the
hub, is some kind of mechanical torture it would be better not to
inflict to an innocent new wheel.

What I wanted to express is that straight spokes do not seem, to my
intuition, as a _much_ better thing than bent spokes, as wrote jim
beam, and that they may be overrated in this regard.
I do not imply they're worse! And I apologize for any misunderstanding
related to my difficulties to write in english : you may know how we
Frenchmen are impaired in foreign languages.