You are reading a single comment by @Brommers and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
Brommers
hamrack
Not quite true - the stiffness of something in bending depends on its second moment of area. That's why steel structures use I-beams - to get as much mass as far from the neutral axis of bending as possible, without increasing the weight of the beam. By flattening the spoke they've made this different in the two perpendicular directions, so it is stiffer in one direction and more flexible in the other.
However you are right that they will behave the same in tension/compression as the material (so Young's modulus) and cross sectional area (so stress) are the same.