Originally Posted by
FBinNY
IME the single biggest consideration is riding style.
That’s part of the issue, although a relatively small part. The tires absorb a lot of the punishment on wheels. The rim can be damaged by running the pressure too low and bottoming out the rim on a sharp corner but that doesn’t really cause any damage to the spoke.
As noted, spokes undergo tension cycles as the loaded wheel turns, regardless of tension. The tension changes depend greatly on rim stiffness, with stiffer rims narrowing the degree of detention on the bottom, compared to less stiff rims. But the tension increases are always fairly small regardless of the rim.
Much is made of the stiffness of rims but the difference in rim stiffness in most cases is relatively small. Modern double walled aluminum rims don’t differ in stiffness from one model to another all that much. They all have similar wall thicknesses. There are some geometrical differences but one geometry isn’t many times stiffer than another geometry.
All the above applies only to when the loads are radial. It's a different world when they're not, because there's no cap for tension changes due to sideboards.
Riders who tend to horse the bike, especially when climbing or sprinting tend to be harder on wheels, especially if those riders are heavier.
Over the years I've known very heavy riders who never have wheel issues, and light riders who do, including a ballerina who was absolute murder on her wheels.
Unless you make every corner a square corner,
every wheel is going to be subjected to lateral loads just as every wheel is subjected to vertical loads. It can’t be avoided.