Originally Posted by
Yellowbeard
Never heard it said that way before, but I'm guessing they're referring to the fact that the wheel supports weight by standing on the bottom spokes, rather than hanging from the top ones, as you'd intuitively think.
Obviously it's not simply standing on them, since every spoke is in static tension, the bottom spokes just lose some, which has the same effect as compression, but without buckling the spoke.
By far the majority of load is carried by a few spokes at the botom of the wheel, not the full bottom 16 in a 32 spoke wheel.
Not quite.
The weight is not on the bottom spokes, but along the top 180 degrees of the wheel.
Spokes have no strength in compression, but a lot in tension.
The top spokes transfer the load up to the rim, the bottom spokes (all of them actually) are holding the rim in a stiff strong shape, so it is the rim that is then transfering the load to the ground.