Saw and marveled at those wheels at the New York Bike Show when I visited Harlan Meyer's booth.

In case anyone missed what makes these wheels unusual, other than the high spoke count: there are actually half as many spokes in the wheel as you'd think from a cursory glance. The (very long) spokes, which were threaded at both ends, were inserted into the hub to the spoke's midway point and then bent to reach two spoke holes on opposite sides of the rim.

I'm not an engineer, so the reasoning behind the design is not obvious to me. Any guesses? Vague memory of being told at the Hi-E booth that the point was to enable the use of aluminum spokes for reducing wheel weight, but that might be a false memory. An easy test would be to check whether or not those spokes are magnetic, of course.