Originally Posted by
mrvile
I wonder why so many low-spoked wheels (the Eastons, for example, are 16/20) still manage to weigh so much? My current wheels are 24/32 and still weigh about 100g lighter than the EA90s.
Low spoke counts require a stronger rim, and strengthening the rim enough to match the lost spokes usually results in more weight than the lost spokes. The worst part of that is that breaking a spoke on a low count wheel has a higher risk of the wheel coming too out of true to continue riding. I'm happy that although my 28 spoke wheels (that weigh 1375g/pair, by the way) should never break a spoke, I can likely just wrap the broken one around its neighbor and continue riding should that ever happen.