Originally Posted by
Hydrated
But the benefits of building a proper 32 spoke 3-cross wheel are considerable. A conventionally laced bicycle wheel is one of the strongest and most durable structures in engineering.
Don't fall for all of the low spoke count hype... the drawbacks far outweigh the meager benefits.
A conventional wheel is a good structure, but the extreme dishing required for 10 cogs pushes it about to its limits. Offset rims, triplet lacing and different spoke gauges are just different ways to address the problems that develop when you build a wheel with too much offset. It's no different than what happened when hubs were widened for 6s and then again for 8s. Eventually the whole hub had to be redesigned to account for bending moments that were never a problem with 5s, but before that happened there were a lot of bent axles and broken dropouts.
Actually, it just shows that race equipment is not the best stuff to use for any riding where reliability is more important than the absolute highest level of performance. Even 10s is not much advantage over 6s or 7s except in competitive situations, but it causes a lot of reliability problems, especially with chains but also with wheels.
em