Originally Posted by
bikemig
Not to overthink this but what's the advantage of 28 hole rims? There's an areodynamic advantage to fewer spokes if going fast but most people going offroad touring probably aren't time trialing. What's the downside of overbuilding the wheel a bit with say 32 spokes? Overbuilding parts that might fail doesn't strike me as being an old school mindset so much as a pretty sound design principle.
To be clear, I'm not arguing with your experience with the bike which is clearly excellent but you also said it was the best thing out there for offroad touring. What's the advantage of 28 spokes say over 32? Are you going fast enough where this is a plus for you? Why is it a disadvantage to overbuild a wheel for that kind of an application say with 32 spokes?
I run and many fellow riders here run 28 or even 24 hole wheels for off road use. some of the folks are physically large people.I see occasional problems, but usually not from wheels spontaneously coming aprt due to too few spokes. Now touring with a load seems like it would be different, but after using 32H handbuilt and now 28H machine built over thousands of miles, I feel comfortable on either one. Metallurgy, QC and technology have come a long ways since 1985! (My boss told stories of having to take wheels off brand new bikes, strip them down and remove excess spoke lengths that was poking up through the rim tape.)