I bought a Masi with the wheels so laced. It needed to be shipped to me. I requested if he could remove the freewheel could he just cut the wheels apart after the freewheel was off.
Could fit in a smaller box.

Maybe the builder thought: "Why do it simple and neat if I can do it more complicated and uglier?"

Perhaps anti-bling would be a better choice of words.

Perhaps someone tried to one-up tied-n-soldered wheels, and had this idea while drinking.

I'd rather see hubs with a 20cm flange, however! Hi-hi-hi-hi flange... Just think of the drilling pattern possibilities.

I dunno, but I think wheelsets with such, look kinda fugly....... JMO....

Seems like it would be kind of hard to figure spoke length, Will on-line spoke calculators work for this?

Or it really doesn’t matter about spoke length, ERD, crosses, etc. Just buy long and twist to fit.

John

I had a front wheel on a mountain bike that was twist-spoked. I bought it that way at a bike swap because it was the best rim and hub available in the size I needed to build the bike, (Mavic and Suntour IIRC,) and it was like 15 bucks. I kinda liked the look, but only because it was weird and I'm weird so we got along.

I road that wheel, exclusively off road, for the 8 years I had the bike. It rode just exactly like a front wheel, and it held up fine, having been built tight and straight to begin with. I think I remember that truing it (the few times I had to) was a bit wonky, but I forget why.

I wouldn't build one unless I was really, really bored, but I'd happily ride another if I ended up with one.

--Shannon

PS: Crow's foot and 3 leading / 3 trailing are way neato-er, and I'll probably end up building those someday. Fronts only.