Bicycle Mechanics - I need some advice of lacing

Okay well i have my hubs and rims on order. THe final peice of my first wheel building project is figuring out how i want to lace this. On this site http://www.stormpages.com/spokeanwheel/whl_bldg.htm there are presented some options of how you wish to lace. I am doing both front and rear wheels so suggestions for both would be nice. I suppose i need to say some background here, I ride hardtail, not a really big kid so im under 150lbs. I do most every kind of cycling. 50-60% road and the rest on the trails with the occasional jump (not these 5 foot drops though, 2 is usually the most). 32h and i use disc brakes. Oh i guess it wouldn hurt to say i have a 9 speed cassette ont here too. THa site siad stuff about crows foot and all, has any1 tried that? Okay and one last thing is am i going to need different size spoeks for different lacing patterns?

He says in his first paragraph - If you are building your first wheel(s), you should start with a conventional pattern. 3 cross, with 2.0/1.8 mm double butted spokes with brass nipples.

If you are using discs, I would ONLY suggest a 3x pattern.

Heck, I ONLY suggest a 3x pattern for any mountain bike.

Radial lacing is too harsh and too fragile.

I know they siad start with 3 cross. But do i use that for front and rear?

3 cross front and rear will work fine. You will need different spoke lengths for drive side vs non-drive side. Go to LBS and tell them the hubs, rims, and the lacing pattern you want and ask them to give you spokes. There are calculators on the web, but it's easier to just go to LBS.

3-cross has been the standard that has passed the test of time. Ask yourself this: Is there a good reason to go with some pattern other than 3-cross?

I've built a lot more than one set of wheels and 3-cross is what I do all of the time unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise. Sometimes boreing is good.

Hey guys, this is his first wheel building project. Didn't you also read all the cool and odd solutions to a problem when you first faced it? Didn't you also calculate again and again and again on different solutions to find the optimal. Didn't you also find it all very interesting, educating, fun, and that the standard often is standard for a purpose. And ended up doing as everyone else, the standard. :)

Good luck with your first wheelbuilding project! I also recommend X3 front and back, because you are using disc brakes. Having the spokes crossed will allow the hub to transmit torque to the rim. So rear wheels on the drive side for every bike need the spokes crossed. Bikes with disc brakes also need crossing spokes on the brake side. One thing I've never seen is a front wheel with X3 on the brake side and radial on the non-brake side. That would be wild, and would probably work, but it would be going against the grain a little bit.

FYI, DT Swiss, the makers of some of the best spokes, have a great online spoke length calculator. Try it! You need to enter the correct hub and rim model. Their list is pretty complete, but not 100%

http://www.dtswiss.com/index.asp?fuseaction=category.bikes

Click on Spoke Calculator.

you know i think im going to bring the stuff ot the lbs and have them tell me becuase it seeems to be thers so many measures you need for these online calculators and im afraid of my measurnment being off. I think i will go for 3x then as it is seems to be what you are all recomending. ANd i believe Sheldon brown has instructions on his site

oh, one more thing. Has anybody tried Vuelta rims? Im seeing these for sale and im just curious about them.

I have Vuelta Airline 3. They 622X19 30 mm deep, made of 6063 T6 alloy. I think they look pretty, but are probably rather heavy. I like them because I weigh 235 lbs and used to be always having to retrue my wheels. In the 2 or 3 years I have been riding on these my wheels have never gone out of true. I have however heard they are poor quality wheels.