Originally Posted by
1987
How common was 32H hubs for road cycling back in the days. I am mainly interested in 60s, 70s and 80s (and the beginning of 90s)?
On eBay 70s Campagnolo Records 32H hubs are kinda rare (not counting "buy it now" listings), a little bit more common for 80s. And in real life 32H Record hubs are even rarer.
Locally I think almost all vintage bikes that I've seen has been equipped with 36H, except a few bikes ridden by professionals.
Not very. 36H was de facto standard. Anything less was for special TT wheels, or
maybe race day wheels. Of course there was always
that guy that had 28h wheels with a front radial and rear crow's foot, or something like that.
In the very early 80s, the European pros started drifting towards heavier rims (e.g. 400g SSC) with 32H, instead of lighter rims with 36H. There was a time lag as usual for the new cool thing to cross the pond, but the trend eventually caught on in NA. By the late 80s that had become dominant in the US as well.