Current Projects chat and miscellany

The only hubs I've had which have a distinct 'right way round' are C-Record, which have counterbores for the spoke heads at alternate holes on the outside of the flange. That does force you to build a particular way round, and because the handedness of most rims opposes it you end up with either outbound pulling spokes or a trapped valve. Apart from the rear drive side argument enumerated above, and maybe the brake side of disc brake wheels for the same reason, there is no reason to favour one method over the other. Incidentally, dish has nothing to do with it, except that it's dish that puts the rear dérailleur cage so close to the drive side spokes in the first place.

Indeed. Interesting that that misconception had perpetuated somehow though.

I thought it might have been the disc wheel forces that convinced Musson to build that way out of habit (as he seems mostly to build MTB wheels) but in his book he reckons when he was learning, he looked at the wheels being used in the TdF and most of them were built with the pulling spokes on the outside so that's what he did. Maybe they were mostly C-Record...