Originally Posted by
bassjones
Road bike or hybrid? If your road bike, 36 spokes, velocity deep v or dyad with the best hubs you can afford. I love the white industries hubs. Great hub at a very reasonable price. If your hybrid, I'd go with dyads or velocity chukkers. Again, 36 spokes, maybe even 40 since you're a big guy and hauling stuff. 36 spokes limits hub selection somewhat and 40 limits it a LOT but you gotta do what you gotta do.
32 spokes are fine.
You just need to use quality spokes (DT), take the time to correct spoke lines for outbound spokes at the hub and at the rim when the angles are too steep, and stress relieve.
That will make a 100X difference (hundreds of thousands of miles not thousands of miles) in how long spokes go before failing due to fatigue.