half radial lacing
 

I have heard about this before, but not much information was given. Then came across it on sheldon browns website who explains it better, he claims it is a good thing for a rear wheel. I believe somewhere on Dave Speed dreams wheels website he says he does it. Or i think he does 1 cross on non drive side because radial lacing voids the warranty for the hub. Can somebody give me some information about this, if you have tried it did it make any difference at all? I might try it on my next build just for kicks, im pretty happy with 3 cross and usually reluctant to try anything new but I suppose its wouldn't hurt at least researching :p

The advantage is gained by laceing the wheel with all of the non-drive spoke heads faceing out. That flattens the triangle formed by the spokes a bit and, consequently makes it necessary to give them a bit more tension when the dish is right. Since a common cause of broken non-drive spokes is inadequate tension, theoretically at least you should have less of an issue with broken spokes.

I assume that using a 1-cross pattern moves the only spoke crossing beyond the hub flange. That makes it possible to lace the wheel with all of the spoke heads faceing outward.

Since I've always gotten adequate results while using a conventional 3-cross pattern, I haven't felt the need to use either pattern.

I saw a guy come into the shop with some kind of bontrager wheelset and the rear had 2 cross on the drive side, and radial on the non drive side. And the front was all radial.

Well i know the advantage its supposed to have, im just not sure if its really worth it. Maybe i will try it, thanks

Sorry, but for the typical rider, I see no advantage whatsoever to radial, half-radial, or reduced-count spoke patterns. I build all of my wheels 3X, with either 32 or 36 DT spokes each.

THats what i have always done as well, I doubt i will do it now. Ive had such good luck with 3x,, plus i think it looks nice.

It just uses less mass in spokes, saving weight. The spoke count can be the same, but they are shorter.

Well it it supposed to help cope witht he low spoke tensions on the non drive side, which can result in broken spokes. But since i have never broken a spoke i doubt i will, or if i do it will be for the looks alone.

I tend to agree. I don't claim to be an expert on wheel building, but just from physics point of view, it just doesn't make sense. Rev.Chuck, a member of this forum who has pretty good experience wheel building said else where in the forum that he could build a wheel cheaper and lighter with traditional 3 cross lacing than the aero, fewer spoked, radial laced, bladed spoked wheel.
I'll wait and see next few years, if people will still be using radial laced wheels. Only it takes to change the trend is to have one big rider in the Tour de France, breaking the front wheel spokes all at once, make a nasty spill, caused by the hard braking on steep hill.

Im a non believeing myself in these reduced spoke count "aero" wheels. Well specifically some of these ones from larger companies where they have radial lacing in "clusters". ANd other exotic things, gerd schraner explains how this requires heavier rims in his book. And his explanation makes sense entirely, these guys run aluminum nipples for weight savings because its farther from the hub, well if you've got these reduced spoke count wheels the rim is heavier, so it defeats the purpose.

My rear wheel is non drive sided radially spoked, I had problems with it comming out of true. I attributed this to the fact that the non drive side being radially laced, but I was told to leave it, supposedly the problem was aluminium nipples, so I changed the nipples and I still had the problem, so I dismantled the wheel, it had a bent rim...

The bike must have fallen over when in a rack or something. Who Woulda Knew?

yea that can happen. I know with my first set of wheels even when i had really good spoke tension according to my tensiometer it seemed like i could never get it true. I got all frustrayed then i found out theres a radial dip. Things happen i guess.

I know the theory is that it saves weight in the wheel.

I doubt that this really true. The only effect of a low spoke count pattern or radial type lacing pattern is that you will have to use a heavier spoke to offset the strength lost due to fewer spokes.

With a 36 or 32; 3X pattern you can use a thinner spoke with severe butting if desired and I think the potential is that you can not build a sstronger but also lighter wheel.

Certainly I think your sacrifice in weight will be minimal.

i know the theory, but im talking about half radial lacing.
http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html on the near bottom of the page sheldon brown talks about it. I just want to know if anybody can confirm

Quote from Sheldon's site:

"More and more rear wheels now are built "half-radial" with semi-tangent spoking on the right side and radial spoking on the left. Radial front wheels offer mainly esthetic benefits, but half radial rear wheels are substantially more durable than conventional ones. The high amount of dishing called for to make room for more and more sprockets has caused an increase in spoke breakage on the left side of rear wheels. This is caused by metal fatigue.
A spoked wheel relies on having all of the spokes in constant tension. A highly dished rear wheel starts with very light tension on the left side spokes. The torque of hard pedaling can cause the left side "leading" spokes to occasionally go completely slack momentarily. Repeated cycles of tension and slackness cause these spokes to fatigue at the bends, and ultimately break.

With half-radial spoking, the amount of dish is slightly less to begin with if you run the radial spokes up along the inside of its flange. In addition, since there are no "leading" spokes, no amount of torque on the hub can reduce the tension on any of the spokes. In fact, if you have a customer who has been breaking left side spokes, "half rebuilding" the wheel into a half radial will solve the problem once and for all.

I used to think that this was exotic, cutting edge technology, until I happened to look at a couple of Model A Fords in a local parade. Their wheels were highly dished inward, and were laced in the same half-radial pattern, for the same reason."

Zipp apparently thinks drive side radial lacing is best.
Click on the "Specs"
The non-drive side is crossed, while the drive side is not.
http://www.zipp.com/wheels/303-tubular

Does this make sense?

Yup, that's what he said.

Now take the time to check out the gallery of his personal bikes and see what he did.

This is the second thread this week on the merits and demerits of radial and half-radial lacing. Generally half radial rear wheels will be radial laced on the non-drive side and cross laced on the drive side since, theoretically, radial spokes can't transmit torque.

However, some commercial wheel sets, particularly Shimano's, are laced radial drive-side and 2X non-drive side and rely on a very stiff hub shell to take the torque across to the cross laced side. I have a set of Shimano WH-R560 wheels on one bike laced just this way and they work very well with no obvious negatives compared to the 32H, 3X wheels they replaced.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it". There is little to none tangible benefit from going to stronger wheels if the ones you're currently riding are strong enough, something which I suspect SB knew well enough.

He did say: if you have a customer who has been breaking left side spokes, "half rebuilding" the wheel into a half radial will solve the problem once and for all.

Maybe he saw it more like a cure for a problem rather than as a way tou build from scratch.

I use 1/3rd radial on my track-bike wheels.

IMO a lot depends on the hub being used. Some are listed as ok for radial or half radial spoking and some are not. In his book on upgrading road bikes Frank Berto reported destroying a Dura Ace hub with half radial spoking. A 4 spoke section of the flange on the radial spoked side pulled out of the hub while he was riding.

IMO radial and reduced spoke count wheels are for racing and will usually give reduced life compared to a normally spoked 2x or 3X wheel with 32 or 36 spokes.

well, actually, it's more like a blast from the past.

I decided to try it out recently and built up a rear wheel in this manner (32 count half radial). So far it has stayed true but I haven't put in nearly enough miles to endorse it yet. I just thought it would be something fun to try, I like how it looks and maybe it will have some sort of minor benefit. I never break spokes or destroy wheels though so I am not the best test case. But you know, what the hell, I was bored.

Wow, it sure is, like 5 years in the past. I've often wondered how these ancient threads get dredged up and restarted.

because people actually use the search feature! ;-)