Originally Posted by Bob Dopolina

@rpenmanparker. Entire books have been written in response to your questions.

There are several things at play here. The comment I made was specific to 24H or 28H hubs. What I am shooting for in a 2X pattern is for the spokes to cross each other at a point that is not too close to the flange thereby avoiding spokes that are pulled over the flange and immediately cross a spoke. That's a lot of bending in a short length and then no other support until the rim. Spokes laced this way will often break just after the point where they cross the other spoke due to the difference in movement.

Also, this allows the spoke to enter the rim at the best angle which is one that allows the spoke to enter a well seated nipple without a bend on the way in.

I have seen several PT builds laced radial on the drive side. Based on my weight and power output I gave it a pass but this lacing does have supporters.

When we were looking to launch our own wheel brand a few years ago I spent a season building wheels for my team and we all raced the crap out of them. I started with radial NDS and 2X DS but found that we experience more NDS failures this way because the compression of each spoke was handled alone. Once we switched over to 2X/2X the failures stopped.

Also, the radial NDS wheels felt noticeable softer when attacking or sprinting. When we got a wheel above 800W we could feel the flex and sometime brake rub. 2X/2X didn't seem to have this problem.

Flange to flange spacing is important but where most hubs fail is the the center to right spacing. This needs to be as close to 20mm as you can get. Very few hubs actually get there. Good ones are 18-19 with the new Shim 11spd even less.

Another method to achieve left-right spoke tension balance is by varying the size of each flange. The math does some of the work for you.

Originally Posted by Bob Dopolina

We were building complete alloy wheels here for an OE customer and had to halt production because of this issue.


I just finished a front wheel sample that developed this issue in the truing stand. It does happen.


Corrosion is an issue for guys who ride the trainer a lot and sweat all over their bikes. I've never seen a hub corrode on the inside but have seen some polished hubs suffer on the outside after a few years of use.

Originally Posted by Bob Dopolina

Not really. The women that lace wheels at the assembly factories are amazing. They grab a fist full of spokes and pop them into place unbelievably fast. Lacing makes little difference.

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

Bob, with regard to what you say about the folks who lace wheels: what is the trick to threading on a standard nipple onto a spoke that needs to be pulled tight to get up to the threads. I always feel like I need another hand. One to pull the spoke toward the rim, one to press the nipple hard against the seat in the rim which I do with an inverted spoke, and one to turn the nipple with the wrench. What am I doing wrong?

Years ago when using rims with ferrules, it was easier because I didn't have to worry about the nipple getting lost in the rim. I just used the crank type nipple driver from above. I known there are some pen-like nipple drivers that are supposed to hold the nipple and not lose it (Wheels Manufacturing e.g.), but they don't work very well for me.

Originally Posted by canam73

I have a driver with an end similar to the one below that works quite well for me:

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

So you can push on it, and turn it with the same hand. That's what I'm talkin' about! Where do you get something like that? Thanks.

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

Coach Boyd treated the concerns in his reply to my message. No, I don't have it backwards. If a hub were perfectly stiff, it wouldn't matter which side you laced radially in one-side-radial design. Assuming the hub flange was strong enough to take the extra tension. I should comment that the radial tension on the DS of a standard wheel design is no higher than on the NDS of a 1:2 (or 8:16, etc.) design. I use that all the time as do a number of OEMs. It is my standard wheel. So if we can ignore the concern about radial tension on the DS, and you assume a reasonably stiff (as in modern) oversize diameter hub shell, the torque transfer on the NDS shouldn't be significantly different than on the DS. I have built wheels with DS radially laced, and for me they work perfectly well. Anecdote is one thing (my own included), but an up-to-date engineering assessment of this would be very interesting.

What radial lacing does for you allows you to put all the head facing one way and get a significant bracing angle modification which can be used to help balance spoke tension from side to side. I just don't like having 120 kgf on one side and 50 on the other as with X lacing on both sides of many modern hubs. With heads-in radial lacing on the DS, I can increase the low tension side to 70% of the high tension side of a wheel that would otherwise be only 40% on the low tension side. Big difference. Even if you use radial on the NDS and put the head out, you get a nice improvement in the balance of side-to-side spoke tension. That is why I like radial lacing on the rear.

There are other mechanisms for accomplishing these things. I find it best to not rely on any one "knob" to turn to get an improvement. I like to use several knobs each turned a little. So offset spoke drilling can help, as can radial lacing as can the 1:2 side-to-side drilling. Lots of tricks to pick from.

Robert

Originally Posted by canam73

I have a driver with an end similar to the one below that works quite well for me:

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

Bob, with regard to what you say about the folks who lace wheels: what is the trick to threading on a standard nipple onto a spoke that needs to be pulled tight to get up to the threads. I always feel like I need another hand. One to pull the spoke toward the rim, one to press the nipple hard against the seat in the rim which I do with an inverted spoke, and one to turn the nipple with the wrench. What am I doing wrong?

Years ago when using rims with ferrules, it was easier because I didn't have to worry about the nipple getting lost in the rim. I just used the crank type nipple driver from above. I known there are some pen-like nipple drivers that are supposed to hold the nipple and not lose it (Wheels Manufacturing e.g.), but they don't work very well for me.

Originally Posted by Bob Dopolina

The hubs in question are popular Taiwanese hubs (that we don't sell). Believe what you choose.

As I said earlier, 6061 is not 6001. 7000 series is better for freehubs or other parts of the hub. Good hubs use a variety of materials. Heat treatments and hard anodizing also play a role. Forging vs machining from billet greatly affects strength and durability. In short materials alone are only one part of the story.

Flange placement in relation to bearings can be an issue with softer materials and radial lacing. I've seen bearings bores stretch on more than one hub from more than one manufacturer. In fact, this is a design consideration that most people are completely unaware of unless they actually manufacture hubs.

Again, believe what you will.

Originally Posted by canam73

I believe I will continue crossing my spokes, front, DS and NDS. Toodles.

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

So you can push on it, and turn it with the same hand. That's what I'm talkin' about! Where do you get something like that? Thanks.

Originally Posted by canam73

I'm curious, did you have a wheel or wheels that developed actual issues? I have built with that hub, and no the imbalance you speak of, but thus far it is doing ok on 2x both sides.

I have since generally moved to other rear hubs. Even in the 11S version both the WI and Novatec rear give you an extra mm of DS offset with similar flange diameter. The one time I went back to the Bitex rear it was with an offset rim which did boost the NDS tension some.

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

My wheels with side-to-side even tension stay remarkably true, and I haven't broken any spokes since I started building with nearly even or even tension side-to-side. There are many ways to get there. I think the best wheel would take a little bit from all the possibilities, uneven flange heights, offset rim drilling, radial NDS with heads-out. Did I forget anything? If you did all that, you wouldn't need 1:2 drilling and could preserve most of the stiffness that comes from large bracing angles. I just think the DS radial lacing is a cute variation. For me, and I suspect for your too, we go through so many different wheels (hobby) anything is fair game. If it works, great. If not, just break it down and do it another way.

Robert

Originally Posted by canam73

What I was wondering is if you were breaking spokes on wheels with both sides crossed and no other special consideration given to balancing tension.

I think about it a lot, but short of choosing rear hubs with largest DS offset I could find I haven't done anything else to address it but haven't had broken spokes or trueness issues either.

Edit: I do use nipple cream.

Originally Posted by Bob Dopolina

@rpenmanparker.

Flange to flange spacing is important but where most hubs fail is the the center to right spacing. This needs to be as close to 20mm as you can get. Very few hubs actually get there. Good ones are 18-19 with the new Shim 11spd even less.

Another method to achieve left-right spoke tension balance is by varying the size of each flange. The math does some of the work for you.

Originally Posted by Roadie607

I must've missed this part. I think I understand. The bracing angle for the DS should be as wide as possible to preserve lateral stiffness of the wheel. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker

Not really. The wheel stiffness is a quadratic squared function of bracing angle, so it helps more to have one side bracing angle very big rather than having both sides more similar but smaller. So increasing the DS center-to-flange distance doesn't really help wheel stiffness a whole lot, and if that increase is at the expense of the large NDS width, it actually hurts stiffness. What the larger DS width does is allow the NDS width to be relatively closer to it, so the tensions on the two sides can be closer. That means it helps you to get at least 60 kgf on the NDS if you tension the DS spokes to 120 kgf.

Originally Posted by Roadie607

Ah okay so it has more to do with tension imbalance. I did happen upon an write up about lacing patterns that attempt to counteract tension imbalance without decreasing wheel stiffness. Author stated that he or she had success with a 3x DS 2x NDS pattern. https://spokeanwheel.110mb.com/lacingsr.htm

The article probably explains it better than I could, but do you think I'd be able to obtain similar results with a 2x both sides by using stiffer DS spokes and less stiff NDS spokes like the Sapim Races and Lasers? Or perhaps a combination of both: 3x DS 2x NDS AND differential spoke gauges?