Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
Wisdom comes from knowing the numbers. So I calculated how much was the ratio between drive and non-drive side spokes under 2 cases:
- Severely challenged limits placed on wheel design due to excessively wide 11-speed freehub
- Narrower freehub from 7-speed era.
The results are that the 7-speed freehub non-drive spokes are 60% of the tension of the drive side. Not good, but workable. 100% is ideal. The distance between flanges is just over 60mm. Again, the ideal result for a stiff wheel is as wide as possible.
In contrast, the extreme dimensional constraints placed on the 11-speed wheel result in a drive to non-drive side tension ratio of 47%. The flanges have to be shrunk to 50mm. Floppy and unstable wheel. Don't let salesman convince you otherwise.
This is why special technologies have to be applied to make 11-speed wheels possible. This is expensive. This is why my pal, who just broke a spoke on his new 11-speed wheel has been chasing through every bike shop in town trying to find a highly custom spoke.
Recommendations of the shops: buy a new wheel. They say that the rest of the spokes will follow in short order anyway.
He has a Campy freehub. To make the search for a new wheel easier, he has decided to go with a Shimano 11-speed freehub and cassette. Recommendations of the shop: it won't work. They won't stand by it, or service it.
Isn't 11-speed great business?
"Highly custom spokes" are a hallmark of the factory wheels you proclaim to love. How hard is it to find a Sapim CX-Ray? All my wheels (well, "both", plus my girlfriend's one) that are 11-speed compatible use those. They're bog-standard and widely available online, though I can't tell you if they're in the shops in your area. I actually can't tell you if they're at the shops in my area either, honestly, because none of my 11-speed compatible wheels has needed more than a minor truing.