Decorative wheel lacing?
 

I'm planning to get a new rear wheel built up and I've been considering some more decorative/ artistic lacing styles. My question would be would these designs (pics below) compromise the durability of the wheel? Cause some LBS to decline truing them/ charge more to true them? Just wanted to ask some people with experience before I get head over heels with this.

IMHO Decorative lacing is best left to decorative bikes. If you are going to hang this bike on a wall so that you and your friends can admire the artistic stylings of the rear wheel, go for it. If, on the other hand, as it sounds like, you want to ride this bike and therefor need to be concerned with reliability and service issues, build a more standard designed rear wheel with good quality hubs, spokes and rims. This is even more important for the rear vs the front since it is dished and will be endure torque that the front will not. YMMV

I'm with blamp28 on this one. Decorative and odd lacing patterns are for show, not daily use. If you want to build a wheel set for occasional and special purpose use, go ahead but don't expect them to be as reliable and trouble free as a standard wheel.

Also, if you are going to have to rely on an LBS to maintain and true them, I think you are ill advised getting into this type of wheel. If you aren't comfortable enough to do your own work on them, stick with conventional lacing.

I see where you guys are coming from; however I always have a shop true my wheels; I can't find enough time to learn how/ to true them myself.

How about the feasibility of a 2-cross laced rear? [more specifically with Sapim CX - ray spokes; a philwood hub; double walled aero style rim].

If you are going to use decorative lacing AND worry about durability and maintenance:

1. Use quality spokes - DT, Wheelsmith, Sapim, etc...
2. Consider 2.3/2.0 single butted.
3. Make sure they are built by a wheel builder who tensions properly.

Reason is simple. Some of the decorative lacings such as the weaved one using groups of six spokes will require an entire and complete detensioning of the wheel in order to be able to replace a broken spoke. So you need to prevent this up front by building the wheel properly to begin with and adding a little "beef" as an insurance measure doesn't hurt either.

Otherwise, you will essentially be paying for a wheel build instead of a spoke replacement and true each time it happens. I've only dealt with this on the weave pattern - so you'll have to examine each yourself and determine what happens for each lacing type service-wise when a spoke breaks.

=8-)

Nothing difficult or novel about that build. It should be reliable and easy to work on if the initial build is good. What spoke count are you considering?

Well I'm still thinking or should I say envisioning, but I should mention that I want to create a place holder for a 90's campy shamal rear (until I get my hands on an actual one). So basically a lower spoke count wheel; hopefully my choice of sapim cx ray spokes and brass nipples will make up for that. FYI it's going on a track bike which is not a commuter.

So any spoke count recommendations? I'm hoping to use my philwood 32H hub.

Nice Hub! A 32 spoke 2 cross using those spokes with a Mavic CXP33 or Velocity Aerohead would be a nice build. You might consider an off center spoke bed since it is a rear wheel to help even the spoke tension out a bit like the Velocity Aerohead OC.

Shouldn't have any problems with a 2-cross 32 spoke build. I think decorative patterns like crow's foot or 3 leading/3 trailing are best reserved for front wheels, where no torque is applied.

My rear is laced funny but it's still true after 2k miles:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

better if you use a lot of spokes
36 and 48 lend them selves to crows foot groups of 3, 1 Radial and 2 2cross..

and the 4 leading 4 trailing is probably best left for 48 spoke..

For most riding the low spoke count wheel is, itself, decorative.

Rohloff is a 32 spoke hub, Ive seen them drilled another 16 times
and a radial spoke added ..

I have a Campag Hi Low flange hub, its gone a long time,un touched.
novel lacing was to make the spoke length more different
by using 18 4 cross spokes, and the other 18 3 cross.

where are the pictures?

**********, your wheel is an American Classics 420, there is a difference between high end factory built wheels with unusual spoke patterns, which will have been computer designed, an are in effect mass produced, and lacing a one off on a standard hub. your AM 420's will probably have the holes in the flanges set so that you could not build it as a normal 32 x 3 cross, but only to their spec.

Personally when building wheel, I just stick to 3 cross, nothing fancy, nothing much to go wrong, and have not had one fail on me yet, there just seem to be too many issues if going fancy, with calculating spoke length, truing, tensioning, and what happens is a spoke brakes?