Twisted Spokes

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

That link doesn't work... I hope this one does:

http://tinyurl.com/s7byl

If all else fails, try ebay auction number 7227716858.

Safe? Probably. I'll bet it's tougher to keep true than a regularly
laced wheel, though.

I'd probably ride it on my commuter if it was given to me, at least
until I was tired of truing the wheel. Then I'd probably lace it properly.

--
Dave
dvt at psu dot edu

LOL, I saw that about an hour ago and couldn't help thinking then what
opinions I'd see on here about it...

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

Quoted message said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227
716858

Quoted message said:

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

David

Simon Cooper said:

LOL, I saw that about an hour ago and couldn't help thinking then what
opinions I'd see on here about it...

Gives me some great ideas for a really interesting bike "sculpture".
Time for a trip to the dump. :-)

dvt said:

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

That link doesn't work... I hope this one does:

http://tinyurl.com/s7byl

If all else fails, try ebay auction number 7227716858.

Safe? Probably. I'll bet it's tougher to keep true than a regularly
laced wheel, though.

I'd probably ride it on my commuter if it was given to me, at least
until I was tired of truing the wheel. Then I'd probably lace it properly.

Never seen this on a road wheel, but it was a bit of a fad in MTB circles a few
years ago. They seemed to follow all the other rules of building a wheel and
tended to work fine.

Ron

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

David

Safe is relative. They have no benefits, and are much more of a pain to stabilize so that the spokes stay in alignment and the rim stays true.
I have been asked to build them, but no one wants to pay for the labor involved in making them stable.
Calculating spoke lengths is tough and usually requires some trial and error interpolations.

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

David

These seem to pose a lot of questions I don't know the answers to, but
there are a few things about them that seem clearly bad. They'll have a
tendency to add built-in stresses to the spokes at the twists, and also
cause the spokes to approach the rim at a sharper angle. Both of these
problems could probably be completely eliminated in theory by setting
the spokes just right, but it seems very tricky with a wheel like this.
Twisting the spokes around each other perfectly is a new problem and
the twisted pattern design inherently gives the spokes a sharper
approach angle to the rim than they otherwise would. Looking at the
pictures, the problem doesn't seem particularly crazy with these
particular components in their faux-3x pattern, but definitely a lot
worse than it would otherwise be. It could probably get out of hand
with different components. I don't think you can really tell for
certain whether this wheel is having problems with bows at the nipples.

All of this, built-in stresses at the nipples or the twists, would
cause an increased chance of spoke breakage if it's present. That's my
guess anyway.

I'd be really surprised if this pattern didn't have any differences in
terms of loading dynamics, etc, with a normal wheel.

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:

http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858

Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

David

Not safe, just plain dumb. stay away.

Quoted message said:

David said:

There is a listing on eBay of a fixed-gear rear wheel with the spokes
twisted together in the pattern... heres the link:
http://contact.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ShowEmailAuctionToFriend&item=7227716858
Ummm... Jobst (and others) how about a little help here on whether this
is safe.

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Not safe, just plain dumb. stay away.

We have a local idiot who sells these "wheels". Never saw
one hurt a rider. But do you want to ride on a public road
with that thing?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971