Originally Posted by Jose R
Radial does build a stiffer wheel, but not necessarily a stronger wheel than a three crossed wheel. In a cross laced design the load is distributed over all the spokes, thereby relieving pressure on the hub and bearings.
In a radial laced wheel, the load is placed solely on the hub. So, not only does your hub flange need to be beefier, but so does your bearings housing design.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Both lacings put all the load from the rim to the hub. That's what spokes do.
The difference is in how this force is transferred to the hub. Radially, each spoke is pulling out perpendicularly to the hub. The more spoke displacement (2x has less than 3x, and so forth) the more tangentially to the hub the force is applied. Since tangentially, there is more material holding the spoke in place, it will tend to not break. However, this does increase the length of the spokes, thus giving you a less stiff wheel.