Originally Posted by bostontrevor
Yup, but what's an industry that's been around for the last 100 years and achieved huge market penetration to do when it wants to grow sales? An appearance of innovation is a must. We're fretting at the margins here but the bike industry would like you to believe that paired spoke wheels will make the difference between standing in the winner's circle and DFL.
Oh, I agree
I'm sure it's maddening to be in an industry where the core technologies have already been developed nearly to perfection.
The fact is that a 32/36 spoke 3-cross wheel is ideal for probably 95-99% of all cycling, Jobst Brandt would probably say even more...
The LACING of a conventional wheel is already practically perfect. The low-spoke count wheels are basically only important for a tiny number of elite racers. I ride some 28-spoke radial Mavic wheels, as I said, but only because they were super cheap used. I don't believe I would race any worse with 36 spoke 3X wheels.
I would guess there are probably innovations still to be made in wheel design, in the rims and the hubs, but manufacturers focus on doing silly things with spokes because they're visually distinctive. Someone on rec.bicycles.tech said that the *only* purpose of paired spokes is to make it look like the wheel has fewer spokes than it really does. And apparently they're hard to true and susceptible to rim damage.
Oh, I just thought of one wheel innovation that I *do* like: off-center rims to reduce dish. My coworker has these on his new Fuji and it seems like a great idea to me