Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Relacing my wheel RADIAL

So anyway...to the point and why i was asking about how NJS hubs were made.
I had my wheels built in tokyo by a builder that turned out to not be so skilled after all. Nice guy... but just not good yet. So in the 6 or so month since he built my wheels ive had to re-true the front wheel every month, at least. Kinda pisses me off but i think he's a good guy so im not really sweatin it.
ANYWAY, im thinking of rebuilding my front wheel myself radial laced.
Wondering if the hubs are gonna be ok with this.
Also, if they are..whats the best way to determine my spoke length? I mean since theyre currently built up, cant i just measure from the hub straight to the rim and add a few mm?
Any insight would be great. Thanks.

http://velospace.org/files/makwheelcm2.jpg

Why radial? I've always heard that radially laced wheels are weaker than crossed.

Why radial? I've always heard that radially laced wheels are weaker than crossed.

Well, from everything ive read in the past few days theyre for the most part stronger and great for a front wheel.
Not to mention easier to build....and look nice too.

everyone i've read or talked to has said that if you relace hubs you should use the same pattern because the flanges are stressed and bending them back and forth could cause failure. radial lacing requires higher tension in the spokes and distributes the force over a smaller part of the flange, so that would seem to exacerbate this problem. but i doubt the wheel would buckle immediately or anything, you'd just be paying a price in durability.

spoke length can be determined with the hub and rim manufacturers' specs and spocalc (http://www.damonrinard.com/spocalc.htm), or if you can't find specs you can measure.

everyone i've read or talked to has said that if you relace hubs you should use the same pattern because the flanges are stressed and bending them back and forth could cause failure. radial lacing requires higher tension in the spokes and distributes the force over a smaller part of the flange, so that would seem to exacerbate this problem. but i doubt the wheel would buckle immediately or anything, you'd just be paying a price in durability.

spoke length can be determined with the hub and rim manufacturers' specs and spocalc (http://www.damonrinard.com/spocalc.htm), or if you can't find specs you can measure.

Thanks, yeah thats what i was getting at in regards to the hub being ok with it. When the guy built my wheels he clearly flipped the front hub and so the spokes are already pulling opposite of what they were before. (the hubs werent new when i got em).
Measuring the parts individually is probabaly better. I tried that and seemed to come up with numbers that couldnt be right. I think i ****ed that up.

Radially laces wheels are stiffer but not as durable. ( read that somewhere) Also your hubs will be dented where the current spokes seated. I think it may be best to lace them up in the same pattern.

This is a great spoke length calculator. Not sure if it has you hubs.

http://www.damonrinard.com/spocalc.htm

The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt is a great book to have around if your going to start building wheels..

Ray

dirtyphotons (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=52330) Types faster!

Also your hubs will be dented where the current spokes seated.

:) Thats how i know he flipped the hub. Cause the hubs are dented slightly from where the og spokes were. I dont think he did this on purpose.
If you look closely in the pic above you can see.

I wouldn't worry too much about hub flange stresses re: the rebuilt wheel. I've read that you should always relace them the same way or they will go poof and I've also read that that you should make yourself a fresh set of dents or they will go poof. Someone else will know whether those hubs can take radial lacing, I have no idea. Radial is not NJS, I'm sure you know that tho. Radials are strong laterally and weak torsionally/radially blah blah blah, but for a 36h front wheel on a good rim you could lace it pretty much any way in the world and as long as the tension was even and all of that it would be more than strong enough for anything you're going to throw at it.

http://www.damonrinard.com/spocalc.htm



Thanks..that thing is pretty cool. My hubs arent specifically in there but i think theyre the same as Suntour high flange track hubs in there. I guess.
The rims arent in there though.
The rims are supposed to be Dia-Compe which dont seem to be anywhere on Earth except with the Gran Compe wheel sets. Thats making it annoying for me cause ima noob at this. :D

edit: thanks Landgolier

I dont think there's really any benefit to lacing radially other than style, and there's several drawbacks. with radial lacing, the wheel may be more stiff laterally and you might save a gram or two from shorter spokes, but that's about it. you stand a higher chance of blowing up your hub, which is non-trivial.

complexity of lacing shouldn't be a long-term consideration when building a wheel. you only have to do it once, why not get it right.

if you bring your hub and rim to a shop to buy spokes, they can calculate the length there. if you are buying them online, or just want to know ahead of time, there's a few online spoke calculators. the best I've found is an excel spreadsheet called spocalc. its got macros to compute spoke length when you select which hub/rim you have and lacing, etc. there are others but they require you to measure everything, and ERD and such isn't as intuitive as you might think.

I dont think there's really any benefit to lacing radially other than style, and there's several drawbacks. with radial lacing, the wheel may be more stiff laterally and you might save a gram or two from shorter spokes, but that's about it. you stand a higher chance of blowing up your hub, which is non-trivial.

complexity of lacing shouldn't be a long-term consideration when building a wheel. you only have to do it once, why not get it right.

if you bring your hub and rim to a shop to buy spokes, they can calculate the length there. if you are buying them online, or just want to know ahead of time, there's a few online spoke calculators. the best I've found is an excel spreadsheet called spocalc. its got macros to compute spoke length when you select which hub/rim you have and lacing, etc. there are others but they require you to measure everything, and ERD and such isn't as intuitive as you might think.

Ah, the voice of reason. All the stuff i need to hear but dont want to. :D
Thanks for your insight.
Someone linked above to that spocalc thing. Its pretty cool but i think youre right...just take the junk to a shop and get it from them.

Well, from everything ive read in the past few days theyre for the most part stronger and great for a front wheel.
Not to mention easier to build....and look nice too.

What the F have you been reading. Radial is the WEAKEST spoke lacing pattern.

dirtyphotons (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=52330) Types faster!


only because i don't capitalize or use proper grammar ;)

http://sacbikekitchen.org/news/

This will teach you how to measure. Go for it, build the wheels as YOU want. They are a good hub with plenty of flange around the spoke. You should be fine. I've build many radial fronts on used hubs, no problems yet.

We collected a bunch of broken high-end hubs to see whether radial spoking actually broke them. The only authenticated examples we could find were ones where there had been a car accident or similar event that would have compromised any hub. We haven't seen a single Dura Ace, Suntour or Sanshin hub that broke from radial lacing. Obviously someone out there can jump curbs enough and break anything, but we haven't seen this problem in ordinary use -- either track or road. Anyway, on the road, the front hub isn't facing skidding pressures, so you shouldn't have a problem.

There are mixed views about changing lacing patterns and I don't really have an opinion as to which is correct. The argument that you should always use the same pattern makes sense, but it also causes the holes to elongate over time. If you change pattern, you keep the holes rounder. On good hubs where the metal is of a better quality anyway, I'd personally think this is the way to go. Spokes don't really create stress risers as in sharp edges or cracks. If the hole has elongated, it's even more reason for not using the same lacing pattern (or for that matter, for not using the hub again at all). Note also that some rims start with a right-side spoke hole just in front of the valve stem, while others start with a left-side hole. This means that one side of the hub can be laced in your original pattern but the other side may have to be laced with spokes going the opposite direction (or emerging from the opposite side of the hole from the previous lacing). So you may not be able to match the original lacing anyway.

As for how radial-laced wheels perform, they are more rigid laterally (side to side) and vertically. They will feel harsher to ride, won't feel like they are flexing as much (on front hubs), and are a bit easier to clean off without the crosses. On the other hand, a 2x or 3x crossing pattern gives more comfort and cushion. It doesn't necessarily make things easier on the hub, but 3x crossing will give the rim itself a little easier time. I'll ride radial front wheels on the track but on the road, I prefer crossed lacings. When you actually see different lacing patterns in a wind tunnel, the radial lacing doesn't really make for more of an aero wheel -- that comes about more from picking an aero rim and from using fewer spokes.

ERD can be impossible to find for some stuff, but it is easy to measure if the rim is unlaced. Get two of the longest spokes you can find, screw nipples down on them all the way until they bind, and then cut off the bends so you just have straight wire with nipples on the end. Measure them from where the nipple would sit on the rim to the end, then put them in two opposite holes in the rim (triple quadruple super duper check that you're actually using opposite holes) and the ERD is the length of your two measuring spoke minus the overlap. Measuring without unlacing the wheel is pretty tough unless your trigonometry kung fu is very strong.

Also, if you run the numbers for your setup and want to double check, plug in the same hub/rim data for 3x and see if it comes out the same as your current spokes.

Also, if you run the numbers for your setup and want to double check, plug in the same hub/rim data for 3x and see if it comes out the same as your current spokes.

Thanks everyone for the info. I feel like theyll be ok and i think ill go ahead with it all soon.
Landgolier, thanks for that last bit there. That should def help me to confirm what i have using spocalc if this LBS here cant help me out.

I wouldn't worry too much about hub flange stresses re: the rebuilt wheel. I've read that you should always relace them the same way or they will go poof and I've also read that that you should make yourself a fresh set of dents or they will go poof. Someone else will know whether those hubs can take radial lacing, I have no idea. Radial is not NJS, I'm sure you know that tho. Radials are strong laterally and weak torsionally/radially blah blah blah, but for a 36h front wheel on a good rim you could lace it pretty much any way in the world and as long as the tension was even and all of that it would be more than strong enough for anything you're going to throw at it.




out of curiousity, which lace patterns ARE njs approved?

out of curiousity, which lace patterns ARE njs approved?

Only 3x i thought

from 11.4 in an old thread:

"All wheels have to be 36 spoke. Rear wheels have to be 4-cross both sides. Front wheels can be 3-cross or 4-cross, although most riders do 3-cross. There are round, oval, and bladed spokes that are NJS approved. The most popular are the oval, which are typically tied and soldered (the solder and the tying wire don't have to be NJS, but are a silver solder and stainless binding wire, respectively). All wheels have their tension measured not only in the building process but also when each bike is tested individually; tension has to be within limited ranges and has to be within tolerances for all spokes in each wheel. There's a stress test that wheels are also subject to which looks for a failure that is usually a rim blowout. Anything else?

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention that disc wheels will be NJS approved at races some time this year. As far as I've heard, the only disc's that are approved are Arayas and an extra-lightweight wheel that Hoshi will be selling. Everyone expects these wheels to take over almost instantly from spoked wheels. So if you're expecting anyone to be making 7600 or Pro-Max hubs a few years from now, you should probably forget about it."

interesting. next question, anyone with a pic or two of a double 4cross rear keirin wheel?

4x doesn't really look substantially different from 3x, viewed sidelong you still see groups of 4 spokes. The spokes hit the hub at a steeper angle, but you don't really notice it. I mean, I know enough that I can look at a wheel and instantly tell you the spoke count and whether it's cross, crow's, radial, 1/2 radial, nL/nT, whatever, but I have to take a second and look to see whether a 36 high flange is 3x or 4x.

from 11.4 in an old thread:

"All wheels have to be 36 spoke. Rear wheels have to be 4-cross both sides. Front wheels can be 3-cross or 4-cross, although most riders do 3-cross. There are round, oval, and bladed spokes that are NJS approved. The most popular are the oval, which are typically tied and soldered (the solder and the tying wire don't have to be NJS, but are a silver solder and stainless binding wire, respectively). All wheels have their tension measured not only in the building process but also when each bike is tested individually; tension has to be within limited ranges and has to be within tolerances for all spokes in each wheel. There's a stress test that wheels are also subject to which looks for a failure that is usually a rim blowout. Anything else?

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention that disc wheels will be NJS approved at races some time this year. As far as I've heard, the only disc's that are approved are Arayas and an extra-lightweight wheel that Hoshi will be selling. Everyone expects these wheels to take over almost instantly from spoked wheels. So if you're expecting anyone to be making 7600 or Pro-Max hubs a few years from now, you should probably forget about it."

Cool info.
Im now hoping yahoo japan auctions will be flooded with used njs hubs soon. :)

So anyway...to the point and why i was asking about how NJS hubs were made.
I had my wheels built in tokyo by a builder that turned out to not be so skilled after all. Nice guy... but just not good yet. So in the 6 or so month since he built my wheels ive had to re-true the front wheel every month, at least. Kinda pisses me off but i think he's a good guy so im not really sweatin it.
ANYWAY, im thinking of rebuilding my front wheel myself radial laced.
Wondering if the hubs are gonna be ok with this.
Also, if they are..whats the best way to determine my spoke length? I mean since theyre currently built up, cant i just measure from the hub straight to the rim and add a few mm?
Any insight would be great. Thanks.


I have to true my front wheel every month or two and the guy who built my wheels is great. If you ride hard or ride on bad roads once a month is ....well life. Not to be a dick but it sounds like you got a wheelset then got into the wheel fashion and now what a radial front.(btw I think it is the best looking lace pattern) Thats cool but I have no idea why anyone would want to run a weaker wheel.

I have to true my front wheel every month or two and the guy who built my wheels is great. If you ride hard or ride on bad roads once a month is ....well life. Not to be a dick but it sounds like you got a wheelset then got into the wheel fashion and now what a radial front.(btw I think it is the best looking lace pattern) Thats cool but I have no idea why anyone would want to run a weaker wheel.

Its not being a dick...dont sweat it. Im not easily offended. :)
Its not all untrue either. I mean i do like the look of the radial and i guess i was just trying to give myself an excuse to do it up radial. :D:D
I did have a bit of a war with the wheelbuilder... with a thread to prove it. It was a mess but it ended up getting more or less worked out and me just settling with what i got cause he didnt seem to have the ability to make them perfect.

there was a thread right here in da forums in which a user posted pictures of his suntour/sunshine/sansin/suzue/something hubs which were radially laced and formed stress cracks at each spoke hole

edit:
here is da thread -->
http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=121795&page=2&highlight=suntour+radial+cracks

Ouch.
His look to be 28 spoke. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
It seems that spreading the stress over 36 would make them less likely to fail.

(btw, i just took about 10 steps back away from radial-ing my front wheel :) )

I have no idea if that second paragraph from 11.4 about discs is correct, I just threw it in because I thought it was interesting.

Looks high flange to me.
http://www.strangersracing.com/images/suntour_cracked.jpg

crap, you read that before I edited. I had originally not scrolled all the way down and only saw the orange rear, not that one. For posterity, my above post used to have some blather about low and high flange.

Cool info.
Im now hoping yahoo japan auctions will be flooded with used njs hubs soon. :)

Psssh. I'm waiting on the NJS disk wheels!

For what it's worth, the disc wheels are finalized but the approval process has been taking far longer than expected by anyone involved. Seems in part that they don't know just how to test them, and any disc wheel will fail by some of the tests developed for spoked wheels. The Araya II disc is the primary candidate for first approval, but when everyone looks around and sees that it is taking MKS 2-1/2 years to get approval on a slight change in the shape of the cutout on the front plate of their Royal Nuevo pedals (so it fits their new cleats), everyone gets depressed. The joke among some of the Europeans is that the NJS logo, when it's finally earned, will be ten inches high and prismatic metallic foil. The few keirin racers who race in the UCI World Cup track circuit are very direct about how bad the regulatory environment is around the keirin tracks. They do it for the money, as do the major European pros.

By the way, I'd love to hear more about that Superbe Pro with the spoke hole fractures. It's a very unusual break pattern. We did find broken hubs, but one would usually see a crack here, a crack there. When you see three in a row like that, among the hubs we examined, it always turned out to be a wheel that was run over by a car (so adjacent spokes were dramatically overstressed) or it was a very nasty hop down some stairs or something equally ugly. One thing I'd say is that I've seen more ovalized holes with Deep V's -- the Deep V doesn't deform or crack under massively excessive spoke tension so there is unreasonable stress on the hub.

Here's the skinny on that failure, taken from its original thread:

"i love these hubs, and i hate destroying them. here's the story:

suntour superbe pro track hubs built radial in the front and half-radial in the rear with black wheelsmith DB14 spokes to black mavic cxp30's using silver (brass) nipples. i fn loved those wheels. this dude took three spokes out of my front wheel with his right pedal as he put me on my ass at kissena. limping across the infeild i consoled myself by thinking i already had the extra spokes, and i could rebuild them the next day. upon closer inspection, though, i discovered small cracks running outbound radially from about half the spoke holes on the front wheel. surpisingly, when i looked at the rear wheel, which didn't really suffer any impact in the crash, i found the same thing on the radial non-drive side. mtrfkr! when i returned home, i asked my friend to check his wheels, which i had also built with practically the same components, except the rims were silver cxp14's. this is the same wheelset that survived the head on collision into the barrier i described in my previous post. he found the same thing on his wheels. breaks my heart.

i build using a wheelsmith tensiometer, and i follow wheelsmiths recommendation of about 100kg. the only thing i can think would have caused the cracks is too high tension. anybody?"

So not actual deep V's, but two pretty deep rims (CXP14 and 30) under reasonable tension. Totally strange failure mode.

Psssh. I'm waiting on the NJS disk wheels!

Yeah but you know those fockers are gonna cost a mint. :(

I have to true my front wheel every month or two and the guy who built my wheels is great. If you ride hard or ride on bad roads once a month is ....well life. Not to be a dick but it sounds like you got a wheelset then got into the wheel fashion and now what a radial front.(btw I think it is the best looking lace pattern) Thats cool but I have no idea why anyone would want to run a weaker wheel.

Once a month means either wheel builder wasn't as great as you think, you are using the wrong wheel for your application, or you spend an amount of time on your bike most of can only dream about.

Radial doesn't make a weaker wheel. In most aspects it will be stronger then a crossed wheel.


when i looked at the rear wheel, which didn't really suffer any impact in the crash, i found the same thing on the radial non-drive side.

This is the wierd part since the whole reason you use radial non-drive side is because the spokes are kept at such a low tension. Also there are no apparent cracks away from the broken spokes on the front.

Are superpe pros symetric?
Slightly off topic but was the entire group **** or just the rings and hubs?

The some dude was Croft, doesn't post much but seems to know a thing or two.

The some dude was Croft, doesn't post much but seems to know a thing or two.

still doesn't make any sense why the low tension rear would crack but not the high tension front. Even if the hubs were symmetric and should't have had a radial non-drive side the tension still should be substantially lower.

Read it again, he found cracks on other holes in his front besides the ones that got ripped up, and his friend found the same thing on his wheels, so presumably front and back. It's not clear who hit the jersey curb with their set, but the moral of the story seems to be that these hubs can't take radial lacing. I'd guess it's got a lot to do with how much they taper around the edges, I'm a hack when it comes to metallurgy but thin edges allow cracks to start easily.

Read it again, he found cracks on other holes in his front besides the ones that got ripped up, and his friend found the same thing on his wheels, so presumably front and back. It's not clear who hit the jersey curb with their set, but the moral of the story seems to be that these hubs can't take radial lacing. I'd guess it's got a lot to do with how much they taper around the edges, I'm a hack when it comes to metallurgy but thin edges allow cracks to start easily.

oh yeah half the front ones. It just seems really odd that they are on the back too. If that is the case there is no way anyone should ever build superpe pros radial or probably even at all.

Just goes to show how little an njs stamp actually means.

Just goes to show how little an njs stamp actually means.

They have Jersey barriers on Keiren tracks??

They have Jersey barriers on Keiren tracks??

No but only one wheel hit a barrier and the only way I can think of to get cracks in the non-drive side rear that doesn't involve a poor quality hub is a strong lateral hit from that side... It seems unlikely that that happened to both wheels.

In total the fact that such a flawed group as superbe pro could get the stamp shows how it is meaningless it is outside the one place it is required.

It almost seems like those hubs would have cracked no matter how they were laced.

Unfortunately this is all conjecture, and it wouldn't stop me from using a radial lace.
ESP. since you are going to be riding this wheel on the street, I'm guessing.

I'd definitely put CXP30/33's in close to the same category as Deep V's -- without a lot of experience or a tensiometer, you can really over-tension spokes and not have any indication (most rims will just start warping out on you when tension becomes excessive; you back the tension off and they're just fine).

Both a front and a rear hub failing together is pretty weird. And while a Superbe Pro hub (single sided) is in fact asymmetric, it not far from symmetric and stress patterns should affect both sides. On a road hub with a deep dishing of the rim, radial non-drive lacing makes sense. On a track hub, it really doesn't and you'd only be likely to find it on some street bike, not in serious training use on the track. That does look like a 24 spoke hub; so what is the rear hub? With those rims, that's a very high amount of point loading on the spoke holes. With those rims, you aren't likely to have a reasonably stable wheel at 24 spokes unless you over-tension it significantly.

Do you have more photos of the hubs (both front and rear)? There's only so much to tell from the one image.