Originally Posted by miamijim
Two thoughts on radial lacing the non-drive side.....
When doing so you decrease by half the number of drive spokes. On 32 spoke wheel there are 16 drive spokes so your pedaling forces are divided amongst 16 spokes. With a radial laced non-drive side you only have 8 spokes handling the load.
If I remeber correctly shorter radial spokes (in comparison to 3X or 4X) have a higher tension with same dish. This increase in tension will, obviously, increase tension on the hub. The higher tension, will, as S notes, decrease slacking of the spoke which may lead to less breakage at the elbow.
Why would radial spokes have more tension? Wouldn't that pull the rim over to that side and mess up the centering between the axle-nuts? Imagine unlacing just the non-drive side half of an already built-up wheel and relacing it radially. Wouldn't the tension on the left side have to be exactly the same as before in order to centre the rim?
The problem with hub-flanges breaking with radial isn't the actual tension it's the direction that the tension is being applied.
EDIT: Or did you mean that there's higher tension on non-drive side because you're reduced spoke-count by 1/2? That would indeed require more tension on the smaller number of spokes on the left side. But if Tim was going to build his wheel with 16-spokes on the left side, then the tension would be the same as with 16 crossed spokes.