Originally Posted by
sstorkel
+1 With all of the people who think that 36-spoke wheels are a requirement, I wonder what bicycle tourists used to use in the past. Modern spokes and rims are
much better than those from even a decade ago. If you were a bike tourist in the 1970's or 1980's, what the recommendation? Use 100-spoke wheels for touring?
Truth is: a
well-built 32-spoke wheel shouldn't have
any problems on a loaded touring bike. Similarly, a poorly-built wheel will end up with problems no matter how many spokes it has...
I had an aluminum seatpost on my bike. It broke. Therefore, I can extrapolate that every aluminum seatpost made from every manufacturer is terrible and prone to breakage.
Isn't the above statement sort of ridiculous? Isn't the above statement kind of similar to saying that you had 32 spoke wheels that had a spoke break, so now you're never going to use 32 spoke wheels again? You give no additional information about the wheels, other than the number of spokes. What kind of rim? What brand and gauge of spoke? Nipples? Hand built or machine built? How old?
Like others have said, there is a HUGE difference in quality between wheels. Spoke count is one factor, but there are several others that are probably much more important.