Originally Posted by HillRider

This is the second thread this week on the merits and demerits of radial and half-radial lacing. Generally half radial rear wheels will be radial laced on the non-drive side and cross laced on the drive side since, theoretically, radial spokes can't transmit torque.

However, some commercial wheel sets, particularly Shimano's, are laced radial drive-side and 2X non-drive side and rely on a very stiff hub shell to take the torque across to the cross laced side. I have a set of Shimano WH-R560 wheels on one bike laced just this way and they work very well with no obvious negatives compared to the 32H, 3X wheels they replaced.