rpenmanparker 

Perhaps. My 8:16 builds have never had a problem though. And Bitex drills them that way for Bike Hub Store. So I assume they approve of that much tension, laced radially.

draganm

DT Swiss says specifically not to do it and that doing so will void any warranty. I have no intention of radial lacing anything, did one front wheel a very long time ago and blew the hub apart in a sprint. I was considering a 2X because you get a shorter spoke and it seems to me a shorter spoke stretches less and you get a more responsive wheel, but for this go round I'm doing a normal X3 both sides.
The only time I would consider radial is with a hub engineered specifically to do so without pulling straight out on a thin flange, like this

draganm

OK, I stand corrected, there is some evidence to suggest the ND side benefits from radial lacing on the rear wheel and that Henry Ford knew this 100 years ago.
Scroll down to radial lacing paragraph
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbu...spoke_patterns

chaadster

No need to go back 100 years to cars; AC and others have been using triplet lacing and differential flange hub height for years, and with many successful miles under clydes (like my 220-230lbs self).

Besides being built exactly like the car wheel you pictured, this 24 spoke AC Argent rear is mated to an 18 spoke radial front which combined weigh less than 1392gm, and have reliably done more than 10k tough, Rust Belt road miles including crit racing, multi-bike pile-up crashes, 60mph descents, +1.2k watt sprints, and high torque load +20% grade climbs...all under my fairly hulking mass. They have not been babied, is my point.



Obviously, these are not magic wheels; they're just wheels, but they are well thought out and engineered. Similarly, that Mavic can put low spoke count wheels on tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, OEM fittings without fussing about weight limits (Argent do have a rider max of 230lbs, so not a great choice for OP) makes me seriously wonder what is going on with these so-called "custom builders" who can't lace up a clyde 1500gm wheels in a radial pattern or with fewer than 32 spokes.

What's going on there, I think, is a matter of cost and access, specifically to components. Builders need the right hubs, mated to the right rims, drilled for the right spokes (2mm bladed might be the special sauce!) and threaded to the right nipples, and they need to make the analyses to know which choices those are. For example, AC don't sell their Hi-Low hub aftermarket or OEM, but they do sell a lesser one. What's a small builder to do when they can't get the right parts or afford to optimizes choices? Compromise, that's what. I mean, everyone compromises, right, so it's a matter of what they compromise on.

Now the other obvious fact is that a perfectly fine pair of 32 spoke, 3x laced wheels can be made, too, and I'm not taking anything away from them or those who make them. I have a great pair of Velocity like this myself. What I'm saying, rather, is that all considered, it's not the lacing, the spoke gauge, or the hubs, nor the rims or any of the specific bits on their own which are the superior element, but rather the care with which the combination of elements is selected and assembled. What's true for a 3x, shallow section rim and narrow flange spacing hub is not true for a deep section, widely spaced differential flange height hub using triplet lacing.

rpenmanparker 

@chaadster: +100 Well said!

draganm

well yeah you don't need to go back 100 years but isn't it interesting that you can and see the exact same thing no? Not accusing American Classic of copying the model T but.............

disappointing that there's no mention of that on their company home page , although 230 pounds is still an impressive rating for a wheel that is mostly air.

yeah they've obviously hit on something with those wheels, and that something I suspect is equal spoke tension for the spokes on both sides . IMHO that's always been the problem with traditional rear bicycle wheels, heavily tensioned drive-side and almost slack ND. The Sheldon B article talks about this

AC probably put an engineering team on this and came up with a great solution. Not surprising that they don't sell the hub bare, at $700. for the pair any company would rather sell the wheel-set. More disappointing that they don't make a set with just a few more spokes for the Super Clydesdales

Doge

This is an old picture of a pretty heavy tandem ~400lbs on 32hole wheels and first (winning) bike Rosarito-Ensenada, Tecate-Ensenada. That is Mexico and not all the roads are that perfect. I did tie spoke crossings for sprints (stoker good for 2000W, me front for 1,500W) and we bent/drove the roller bearings into that white industries hub axle in the days before they were hardened steel, so besides the bragging part - I think the idea that a road someone is too powerful for a well built wheel should be put to rest. Those are 14g bladed DT flat spokes, with 23mm tires @ about 150PSI. The current cx-Ray or DT aerolites now are superior. We could bunny hop that thing over pot holes and curbs, but it did take a hit every now and then.

I played around a bit with tires and wheels. Later I moved to fewer spokes on larger tubulars and some smaller @ 170PSI. I found the 16 hole front too light. I eventually settled into some tri spoke Nimble tubulars. My son uses those tri-spoke wheels now, 20 years later for TTs.

Anyway, I don't see why a single 240lb rider needs anything special unless hitting holes is a daily thing.

TandemRoserto1995 20161117 sm.jpg

chaadster

Bill Shook, the owner/designer at AC, makes no secret of the fact he's smart and well-informed:

"We have done it before. We have been doing that [2:1 lacing] for quite a while now. The theory behind that is that I'm trying to stiffen up the read wheel without increasing the number of spokes. I realized that the limiting factor on the rear wheel is the disc angle on the drive-side spoke. It is a nasty situation. You have to get all ten or eleven gears in there, and it pushes the spoke angle to be so steep that you don't have a lot of power to keep the rim from flexing side to side. You can only tighten the spokes so much. You have to loosen the non-drive spokes to keep from pulling the rim out of dish. You've got all the drive side spokes doing all the work. The non-drive side spokes just go along for the ride. Just sort of doing the balancing act to keep the rim on center. A lot of weight not being used. By going to a pattern where I have two spokes on the drive side opposed to one spoke on the non-drive, and then adjusting the position of the non-drive side flange so that the force vector on the non-drive side is twice the force vector on the drive side. If all the spokes then are the same tension, it's a balanced system. I have two force vectors on the drive side opposed to one force vector on the non-drive. the two on the drive side are half the one of the non-drive side. It is completely balanced when all the spokes are at the same tension. Did you follow that?

Let me back up. There are 24 spokes on the rear wheel. The rear wheel is a stiff as a 32 spoke wheel. Here is the reason why. On the drive side I have 16 spokes. The same as a 32 spoke wheel. That is why the drive side is the same stiffness as a 32 spoke wheel, but on the non-drive side I only have 8 spokes. Those 8 spokes have to do the job of 16 spokes on a 32 spoke wheel. What I have done is increase the bracing angle so that they have more power. One spoke with an increased bracing angle can do the job of two spokes with a reduced bracing angle. The bracing angle, since I can move that non-drive side flange where ever I want, I chose to put it where the tension in that non-drive side spoke will be equal to the tension in the drive side spoke. I adjusted the bracing angle to make it so.

Now all the spokes in the read wheel are equal tension. The wheel is as stiff as a 32 spoke wheel, but it only has 24 spokes. That is not a new trick. Ford Model A's have spoked wheels with a 2:1 lacing pattern also. For the same reason. They had to deal with a bracing angle difference. It's an old, old trick, but boy does it work. We applied it to the bicycle wheels. We did that a number of years ago with the 420's, and it really worked great."

-- Pez interview, June '14
American Classic Road Tubeless Wheels Reviewed - PezCycling News

Doge

It seems to me logically 2:1 lacing would always be superior.
But on-the-limit light wheels are not that way.
Sub 800g wheel sets all have the 1:1, and they are not always the lowest spoke count either.
Having higher tension on the DS may offer some benefits under higher torque.

So my as light as I know of 24 hole rear 1:1 could have been an 18 hole 12DS (as it is now) and 6 nonDS. But it isn't. That is 6 spokes of weight and aero resistance they left in that wheel ~20g. I wonder why.

chaadster

Sub-800gm wheelsets?! Wow, I've never heard of anything like that! I'd love some details on what something like that would look like...just out of curiosity.

I thought the Extralight Ultraclimb SPN tubies at 865gm were about as light as it gets, at least in a production road wheelset. The lacing and spoke count on those is 2:1 and 20/24 (exactly the same as AC uses).

Doge

I have the ax version of these. Similar with DT Aerolite spokes and ceramic bearings. Mine are about 780g a set.
CyberClimb A25

I've posted mine with pictures. Tires, cassette, skewers <1,400g

chaadster

Wow! Thanks!

But aren't those 2:1 as well?

noodle soup

the photos I see show 12 radial NDS spokes

Doge

These are mine - "standard" build. 24 rear 20 front - radial on ND side.
Contrary to popular belief very strong too and stiffer than most due to wide flange stance.
I'd put a 200lb rider on them no problem.
axSet1370gSm.jpg

chaadster

Ah, yes, I see that now. Thanks.

draganm

good article and I like the design, I really do, but if it's still the same AC wheel we've been talking about then
from the article
that last parts a bummer , that's 40 lbs under what I need and I bet that in addition that front wheel at 24 spoke count will produce some brake rub in a hard climb.

I would love to use the design technique though and build a super-clyde wheel. Instead of 16/8, I would like to see one with 20 on the DS and 10 on the NDS. I bet a wheel built like that could handle a 250 pound gear masher no problem.

chaadster

The wheelset in the article is the Road Tubeless, not the Argent wheelset we discussed earlier.

Regarding brake rub, although the Argent I use has only 20 spokes, it uses the same hub and feels pretty precise and solid to me. The 23c rubber I use on the 19.4mm (inner) rim really plumps out pretty nicely and does not have much fork clearance, yet I have not had rub that I can recall. I would expect rub to be a manifestation of a laterally stiff wheel and/or fork leg flex, rather than a flexy wheel. I'd expect a wheel with lateral flex to deflect at the bottom half, where the shear force is at the road, not up at the brakes, and to feel rather vague, imprecise, or un-crisp at turn-in and leans.

rpenmanparker 

Nope, 2:1 has one serious drawback. (Full disclosure, it is my favorite lacing pattern.) The stiffness of a 2:1 wheel is much lower than one with the same total number of spokes, same number on each side, and the same spoke gauge(s). The larger bracing angle of the NDS spokes provides the main spoke-related source of stiffness to the wheel. If you cut back the number on the NDS by about 1/3, you seriously reduce wheel stiffness. Sure you get some of it back by putting those spokes on the DS, but not all of it. Why? Because the bracing angle is smaller on the DS than on the NDS. So you are trading stiff spokes for ones that are not as stiff. But even worse the relationship between bracing angle and stiffness is not linear, but is a square function. So larger bracing angles produce much higher stiffness. And lower bracing angle produces much lower stiffness.

I don't particularly care about wheel stiffness, so for me 2:1 lacing is ideal. YMMV.

rpenmanparker 

Unfortunately hubs and rims drilled that way are hard to find (impossible?). That's not a problem if you are an OEM making many thousands of wheels. The parts makers will make you whatever you want. But for the rest of us it is next to impossible.

Doge

I know folks are not into tubulars, but in case someone was, you get a lot of wheel for the weight.

While most would correctly think a tubular is for racers, the same properties that make them the preferred Paris Roubaix tire and light climbing wheel tire make them good for other applications - like 250lb rider - or tandem.


We've been through this in other threads, but you can get very strong wheels at light weights.
I'd have little issue putting a 250lb rider on a 50mm profile 20/24 set with today's spokes. Might go 24/28 for stiffness reasons.

Masque

Some of the Chinese carbon manufacturers are happy to drill you a custom pattern. I believe Light Bicycle is one of those.

draganm

they sure do

I've been a professional machinist for almost 30 years, I could make the hub shell. Copy someone elses internals, then use their bearings, free-hub socket etc. and swap it all over. Question is do I want to spend the next 12 Saturdays at work? Probly not .
It would be a cool wheel though, could probably jump it off curbs and do bunny hops . For now I'll just wait and see how my DT Swiss/Archetype turns out . No points for originality though, someone beat me to it

Grasschopper

Finally found a photo of my Formula hub flange. Of note this did last me 3 years before the flange gave up.

draganm

yeah, double whammee on that hub, radial on the drive side and the paired spoke head slotted design leaves even less material on the hub flange above the spoke head than a normal drilling

I wonder if you had done radial on the NDS instead ( like Henry Ford ) if it would have been ok?

My current back wheel has been pretty solid . Started off life as a factory built Ultegra hub and Mavic open pro rim. I blew the original rim out quite a while back, and simply re-laced it to Sun Assault SL1. That rim has gone a long way, just barely starting to show stress risers on the rim DS as the eyelets start to creep outwards. The only problem I've had is shearing off the AL nipples, maybe a dozen of them, but that's an easy fix. For that treason I'll more than likely keep my my new wheel X3 both sides, X2 on the NDS if I do anything different at all.

This wheel will probably go on my TT bike as I recently cracked the back hoop on that one

draganm

AND
I just found out my TT wheels are collectors items (sorta) I wonder if this hoop is still available ?

Weird wheel, Rigida hoop, Giant bonded-Carbon hub to AL flanges, Joy-tech free-hub, and no idea who made the spokes