I hope I'm not double posting. Wrote a response but seems to have lost it.

Sorry, back to the wheel again. I just looked at the web page, http://www.astounding.org.uk/ian/wheel/, with the load analysis of the bicycle wheel. He has made a critical bad assumption and his analysis is incorrect because of it. He assumes that spokes can carry compression loads. Clearly, this is not the case. His model, for analysis, would be more appropriate for a disk wheel.

A bicycle wheel transfers the load from the hub to the road through two methods. The first is by spoke tension from the hub to the top part of the wheel. There, the load transfers to the rim and places it in compression. The bottom half of the wheel then uses the rim as an arch to carry the load from the top half to the ground. The spokes that aren't working directly in tension to carry the load are used to stabilize the wheel and for propulsion.

So, because the original analysis is based on an incorrect model, the forces in the spokes shown in the diagram should not be used for debate because they are wrong and misleading.