I know a lot of the time when building a road wheel, a mechanic will use slightly beefier spokes on the driveside (like DT Competition as opposed to Revolutions or something) and then thinner spokes on the non driveside of the rear wheel. Would this make any difference on a track wheel since there is no dish? Would the drive side still be subjected to a lot more force than the non-driveside or does it equal out in a dishless wheel?

PS Before anyone says anything about how performance doesn't matter if you just ride point A to point B... I'm training on these wheels damn it! Leave me alone

i THINK that generally having the dish makes the drive side spokes under a lot more tension than the non-drive side, just the tension on the wheel itself, not necessarily under pedaling force.

but i really don't know if it would help much on a track wheel. i personally would just use beefier spokes on both sides, especially for training. spokes don't save you THAT much weight, and if you are training and not racing, i personally like a slightly heavier steed, that way when i get to racin' i swap out for something lighter and it feels so much faster.

I can't imagine the drive side experiences significantly more stress than the non drive side. That would require some sort of very flexy hub shell.

Why not post a poll and see if people get more broken spokes on their drive side or non-drive side?

When I rode cheap-assed wheelsets on my geared bike I broke spokes on both sides. But individual wheels would only break them on one side or another. So I had one wheel that broke drive side spokes and another that broke non-drive side.

I've never broken a spoke on a track wheel. But I think the answer to your question is no.

Use the same spokes on both sides.

GB

I don't know the answer to the question, but I'd like to rectify a pet peeve of mine: some "track wheels" are dished. I don't know why, but it irks me when people equate "track" with "no dish".

When are track wheels dished?

I was completely unaware that there was any need for dish on a track wheel, ever.

Never ever ever mix spokes of different butt lengths ever. If you want a strong, light, durable wheel, build up a set of 32 spoke, 3 cross, dt comps, to a double wall eyeleted rim, to a high quality hub.

Like wearyourtruth said.

If you train heavy you race fast.

if the wheel is dished, it would depend on the hub. my fixed-fixed
dura ace hub is not dished because the flange-center distances are
symetrical, but my single-sided dura ace hub is slightly asymetrical
and therefore slightly dished.

Oh well yeah, but that's nowhere near the dish you get with a 9-speed cassette attached to the side of your hub.

Same here, my non-flip-flop phil hub causes me to have dish.

My single sided miche hub is certainly dish-designed, probably not as much as a geared wheel, but still enough to require different length spokes. I didn't mean to derail the thread, just pointing that out.

All the tricked out stuff you can do when building road wheels, such as using different guage spokes, different numbers of spokes, and different lacing patterns on the NDS are attempts to compensate for the weakness in the wheel related to the assymmetrical dish and lower tension of the NDS spokes, which leads to higher fatigue rate in the NDS. When the the wheel has such assymmetrical properties, it makes sense that the most optimal wheel-build design will be assymetrical as well.

If the wheel is symmetrical (or close to it) then the tension on both sides will be similar and the best wheel-build design will be one thats symmetrical...built the DS and NDS with the same spokes, lacing pattern, etc. Most of the driving force goes through the DS spokes, and a lesser amount goes into the NDS spokes, but the bigger difference is actually between the leading and trailing spokes on the same side. However the rotational forces exerted on the spokes are very small in comparison to the overall spoke tension, so its really a non issue, particularly on a SS/FG that lacks a granny gear.