gyozadude

Park's website isn't always accurate. The weakest point is NOT the rim. It's the spoke elbow and Park should fix that statement. The rim is protected by tire, tube, and sometimes eyelets to distribute load. The weakest link is usually the spokes and that's the most common mode of failure.

From my experience, many folks claim their wheels failed and were looking for one rim or another. But in fact, the spokes failed and that led to catastrophic rim failure. Note that to support greater weight, all the wheel builders don't say to go with a different rim. They first tell folks to stop using 24 and 28 spoke rims and go to 32h or 36H or even 40H rims. More holes drilled for eyelets into the rim, but why is it the first choice for wheelbuilders for say heavier riders or tandem riders? Why?

Because the assertion that Park tool's site is saying that stronger spoke tension depends on the "weakest link which is the rim" and therefore contact the manufacturer, is silly. Park sells a tensiometer. They did not say it makes a strong rim. Only they recommend that spokes are pre-tensioned to as tight as the rim and rim-eyelets if the rim has them, will allow. And that's BECAUSE they know that the main failure mode is the reversal of tensile stress on the head of the spoke if the tension in the rim generated by the spokes is insufficient to always bias the spoke tension positively. In other words, if the load is heavy and it can cause the spokes at the bottom or sides of the wheel to unwind to the point where the spokes are loose and not under tension anymore, this is bad and causes fatigue on the spoke as opposed to elastic stretch if the spoke is always tight enough and under some amount of positive tension. And hence why many of the longest and strongest wheels are built with skinny in the middle butted spokes that stretch elastically.