Originally Posted by
cyccommute
The only force on a spoke is tension.... In fact, if you try to compress a wire spoke, it will simple collapse.
Ooh, you sweet summer child.
Have you never read the hundreds of posts on rec.bike.tech by Jobst Brandt, declaring again and again that a bicycle wheel under load stands on the lower spokes, between the hub and contact patch?
When challenged sufficiently to give up, he would occasionally fall back to "I guess you just don't understand prestressed structures."