vtchuck

I considering purchasing a newer ('06) Jamis bike. I have always had classic style road bikes from the 70's and 80's
equipped with 32 or 36 spoke wheels and mostly 14g spokes. The wheels on this bike are 20 spokes front and 24 rear
with what looks like a 2x pattern and the deep profile rims. Along with the dishing needed for a 10 speed cassette, they
seem like they would be unsuitable (and unsafe) for a Clyde (I'm 6'2" and 220)

I'm be interested hearing whether others have used this this type of wheelset and how it worked for them

BTW, purchasing a new wheelset would make this bike unaffordable, so thats not an option

TIA

achoo

You're going to get a lot of anecdotes saying, "They worked for me."

They'll then follow that up by concluding that low-spoke-count wheels are just as durable as higher spoke count wheels.

That's kinda of like saying since they survived their mother giving them a toaster and an extension cord as tub toys, it's a safe thing to do.

chaadster

Properly built 20/24s are fine, safe, and durable.

Of course if you ride like a dump truck full of rocks, choose wheels to suit.

Personally, I'm 220-230lb and know how to ride, so I pick lines, unweight, wisely apply power, and balance my weight over rough stuff, so while I ride 18/24, 20/20, and 32/32 all shod with 23c tires, I've never had any trouble with any of them, and I ride in SE Michigan, so the roads get no worse.

In fact, the only spoke failures I've ever had in 28 years of riding were 36/36 wheels back in the early '90s. The point, of course, is not that 36/36 suck, but that the quality and type of the build matters. For example, I wouldn't expect a 20/20, 15-16ga J bend round, shallow rim build to work great for me, but a 2.0mm straight pull aero blade does. I race crits on 'em.

jsigone

I go off roading on my roadie with my 20/24 wheels. Yes I trust them, yes they are awesome

chaadster

Skillz!

Your post makes me think that some of the best riders I know came up, as I did, in the pre-suspension MTB era, when having the technical expertise to negotiate rough trails was essential; shocks really took some of that demand away, as did the trail 'domestication' that came with land access issues and increased ridership. Trails used to be rougher, and I wonder if it didn't teach us some things about how to ride. And as old dudes now with like 25-35 years of riding under our belts, some execute those skills like 2nd nature, just effortlessly; the Masters are some of the fastest guys to chase!

TheMayor

Big factor to consider is who built the wheels. I had 28/24 spoke wheels as a stock wheel set on a new bike.. I was 230 and the wheels would not stay true for more than 2 weeks. The LBS mechanics could not get them to stay true after several attempts. I got tired of fighting with them so I replaced them. After I realized how important a role the builder played, I decided to rebuild them. I bought new spokes then used the same rim and hub. I put them on my bike and logged about 10,000 miles on them with no problems. So the builder has plenty to do with the durability factor. Hand built wheels with 30 mm profile I prefer, stock machine production stuff with 23-25 mm profile, not at all. I've thrashed several sets of low spoke count stock wheels within 6 months.

digibud

No question but that today's 20/24 spoked wheels are often just fine for folks our weight (220ish). Of course that assumes they are built well. My last two sets of wheels have been 20/24 and have gone thousands of miles without a single touch of a spoke wrench. Do check with the maker of the wheel for their recommendation for maximum weight. Some will flat out say they there is a weight limit and others will claim no limit on weight. Obviously they don't expect a 450lb person to be riding such wheels but my experience is that a good 20/24 can be fine for a big rider. I would have preferred a 24/28 but in looking for a good, reasonably priced tubeless wheel I found no 24/28 that I liked and ended up with a great deal on Bontrager wheels that I'm quite happy with. I probably have less than 2000mi on them but so far they remain perfectly true.

TrojanHorse

OK, a bike from 06 officially qualifies as "older" now, not "newer". Is it carbon or AL or Steel?

I agree with all of the above - I have a set of wheels I rode 70 miles on yesterday that are 20/24, I have a set of wheels I've put about 6k miles on that are 24/28 and I have two pair of 32/32 wheels. I'm 6'2" 220 and I assure you I worry much less about the 32/32 wheels so the real answer is "it depends"

Classic wheels from the 70s and 80s had pretty noodly rims and they needed that many spokes. It's not as necessary as it used to be.

JerrySTL

I had a pair of Rolf Vector Comp wheels that had 22/26 spokes if memory serves. They were great and I rode them many, many miles.

I had a pair of wheels with Mavic CXP23 rims and a reduced number of spokes. They were horrible. They would start to shimmy and wobble even after ensuring that the spokes were properly tensioned. I ditched them for a Mavic Open Pro wheelset with 32 spokes.

I weigh about 220 lbs.

chaadster

The hand-built vs. machine-built paradigm is so passé...and inaccurate.

Jarrett2

At 255 or so, I crunched my stock rear 24 spoke wheel pretty quickly. It came on the Roubaix and I think its a Fulcrum Racing 5 maybe.

I went to some DT Swiss RR440's with 32 spokes and DT Revolutions (2.0/1.5) and they've been fine for 1500 miles so far.

chriskmurray

I would ride them, it does not hurt to have a shop that is comfortable with wheel builds to double check tensions and to stress relieve them properly as nearly every machine built wheel I have seen has been far from ideal in this area.

If you do that, possibly even if you don't I would imagine that at 220 you will get lots of life out of them unless you are unusually hard on wheels.

crazyb

I have ridden Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels for over 20,000 miles, weighing as much as 250, with no broken or loose spokes. A quality wheelset doesn't have very much to do with toasters.

dr_lha

My bike came with 20/24 wheels as stock, and at 290lbs they were hopeless. 3 broken spokes, constant need to retrue. I took them off and replaced with 36h wheels.

I moved those onto my new bike, and tried out the 20/24 now I'm down to 250lbs. Nah, still awful.

Maybe @ 220lbs I'll try again.

Do what I did. Ride them, if they're unreliable, get some better quality wheels.

vtchuck

"Newer" by my standards as my "modern" bike is 1990 LOOK It was a Reynolds 631 frame & a carbon fork. A moot point now as
the bike sold to someone else. I do appreciate the feedback, in case I'm tempted by a another high-tech bargain.

TrojanHorse

OK, steel hasn't changed much in 10 years but carbon certainly has. Freshen up your Look and keep riding that!

FrenchFit 

The advantage of going with 36h is even crap wheelsets are fairly strong. When I was 230 I was riding 20h neuvations and they were great -- still are. It's the quality that matters, spoke count is a lesser factor.

ChrisZog

Shops keep telling me that spoke count isn't everything. I just think that as long as they and/or the manufacturer honors the warranty, and as long as I'm not going to an expensive (fund raising) event, I'll go with it. I'm looking at a Domane next year and will probably be under the suggested weight limit but higher than most people would suggest for 24 or 28 spoke rear wheel. When it gets closer (finances get better and weight gets closer to the goal of dropping below the 275 suggested limit with my riding gear) I'll talk to the local shop and make sure he thinks I'm good to go. Owner hasn't steered me wrong so I'll keep on trusting.

But I do admit that if I went for something like a Domane 5.2 (which is pretty darned light for someone that will be just under uber clyde by that point) and had spent a year fundraising for a large race, I'd probably take out some insurance and have the shop build me a tough rear wheel. Just in case. So far I've stuck to events with just an entry fee, no fundraising so I'd probably be okay with risking it for that or normal daily or group rides.

vtchuck

I think my LOOK is pretty "fresh" looking right now.... and has 32 spoke Campy NR / Mavic wheels:



Weighs a bit over 21 lbs.... pretty light for a 25" frame. Once the snow melts
I'm looking forward to my first ride on it

chaadster

The seat and bars are awful, and need changed immediately (to my tastes). Otherwise pretty nice, though the black crank is questionable. With the right saddle, bars, and bar tape it could work, but generally a nice quality silver crank would be better.

scottydoesntkno

For what it's worth, when I was riding 100+ mi a week on my Giant OCR C3, I was roughly around 215-230 and stockier at 5'-8" and my wheels that came with it were Xero Lite XR-3's which were 24 rear and 20 front and they never had issues. I went on a very long hiatus from cycling and had some other stuff that factored in, my weight skyrocketed to 260 and I decided against both riding those wheels and that bike until I get myself down a bit. Got a cheapie fixed bike with a flip flop hub I put on freewheel to mimic a single gear road bike and some 28 or 30 spoke wheels or whatever but I digress..

As others have said, ride em and see if they work. They might. My wheels worked for me but after looking at reviews of the wheels, they did NOT work for other people. I'm starting to see a lot of things in cycling (as I get back into this) really are truly rider dependent and it really is one of the try and see parts of life. Saddles can fit one person great and wreak havoc on another person, while some people can rock on and race on cheaper bikes with cheaper gear sets when they've gone through several sets of DuraAce and Ultegra sets that kept failing them, while others need the DuraAce or Ultegras because lower gear sets failed them...

SlowAndSlower

I ride Mavic 20-20 and 18-20 bladed spoke wheels at 230+ without any problems. On the other hand I don't think I would be comfortable on anything less than a 32 hole wheel using normal round spokes.

jsigone

my 20/24's working hard







stans Alpha400's on Neuvation hubs and DTswiss bladed spokes wrapped in Conti GP2 23c with tubes

scottydoesntkno

More justification of my working theory- It's try and see if it works for you. I'm 80% sure mine wouldn't stand up to that kind of work, but for you they do. It's examples like this, however that also makes me think I over-think stuff like is my bike capable of something. Another example that road bikes can be tougher than you think (granted this guy is obviously sub 200, but think about the physical forces he's putting on his bike compared to us who are just riding in straight paths and avoiding pot holes):

yipyipyip

Perfect 1st reply.

By the looks of it, Martyn Ashton is 75g/165lbs max. Also, he's paralyzed now, so there's that.