440 cc?? I obviously meant 440ci. The highway patrol in California back in the 70's did run 440's in Polara Pursuit's, a few of those were rebuilt when newer cars came out but didn't have the horsepower of the 440 so they used those pursuit cars mostly on hwy 5. Those big Polara's ran a quarter mile in 14.3 seconds and had a top speed of around 150. Then the Mustang came out in the 90's with decent enough horsepower and they purchased more helicopters so horsepower was no longer a huge factor. The cops in the town where I lived in only ran 360's. The weird thing was that even the kids on the streets had cars still faster!

This is all 35yrs ago but it became pretty obvious that differences of a few oz in wheel weight was insignificant compared to whether the motor could put out 500watts or 400watts. In the total mass of my 145lbs and 23lb bike a few oz didn't matter at all, especially riding next to a 135lb guy who rode with 36 straight 14g spokes who used to be on an Olympic track team or the old retired 36yr old Cat II rider who weighed 180lbs riding heavy clincher wheels. If the wheel is built well change weights with the tires.

I know this is getting terribly off track, but what the heck. In mountain bike racing, there's another factor that can make as much or more difference than just about anything else: home course advantage.

I experienced this in the extreme recently. A race I did required a few hours driving to get there, so it wasn't local to me at all. I had heard about basic characteristics of the course from friends who had raced it before, and I tried to prepare myself for the type of terrain we would be racing on. But in this particular race more than any other that I've done in our race series, a lot of local guys raced it because it was their home trail system and they wanted to support their local club that was sponsoring the race. Big field, lots of guys racing who ride this trail very regularly, but who may not currently do a lot of racing otherwise. Myself and some of the other "regulars" in the race series, some of us having nice seasons and getting a lot of podiums and feeling a little full of ourselves, but not intimately familiar with the race course........ This race turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the season for me. Got smoked by guys who, in my mind, had no business smoking me. Crashed badly trying to ride outside my limits, blah, blah, blah. Still finished mid-pack, but felt like a truck had run over me for about a week afterwards.

My double butted spokes didn't help at all! :D Seriously, there were bikes in that race, some of which finished ahead of me, that I thought were kind of questionable pieces of equipment beforehand. Don't get me wrong, I like nice stuff, and will continue to use nice stuff.........but it doesn't always help. :)

I have struck out on fatigue testing of bicycle spokes. Could not find any real data.

Except for broad generalities, you won't find specific data. Riding conditions are too variable to draw conclusions from laboratory testing.

You have to go back 100 years or more to when Torrington first produced them and supplied the data making the case.

There aren't modern studies because there's no need to prove anew what is generally accepted knowledge.

The was flat once, too.