Spoke patterns: Hybrid crows-foot lacing

Anyone ever laced a 32hole hub with the hybrid crows-foot pattern? Pretty much going to do the one here.

My lady really wants a crows-foot lacing (but we've already bought a 32h hub and rim and standard crows foot only works on multiples of 6 apparently), so it looks like it will have to hybrid crows-foot lacing for this.

Just wanted to know if anyone had a comment, useful tips etc? Am always stoked to try more exotic wheel patterns.

Bump - so no-one has done this? Is it just a bloody stupid idea then?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe our illustrious leader, velocity boy, has these on his BJ.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buro9/273274458/in/set-72157594165794375/

That shows the old wheels.

I have no photo of the new wheels, but yes they are the 32h Hybrid 2-Cross/Radial deviation of the Crows Feet.

They make incredibly stiff wheels, great control and power transfer. Still smooth too.

Want to ride on them? A 60cm frame suit you? You can have a ride on my bike if you'd like to see how the wheels might feel.

I'm told the way to build these is to tension the 2-cross, and then do the radials afterwards. The 2-cross will only need a little re-tensioning to then be perfect. If you try and tension both from the outset it gets very messy.

Now thats what I'm talking about, cheers Mr K. Thats a good tip and its nice to know the lacing pattern works well on the street.

Thanks for the offer of the ride, but I live in the sticks and I doubt I'll be anywhere near central London for a while.

The lacing isn't as forgiving as standard crows feet. There is a lot more lateral stiffness. I personally really like this, but if you hit a pothole it will give you quite a jolt. That said, I skidded my front wheel sideways in the wet a few weeks ago and recovered thanks to it not flexing sideways during the skid. So I'm already attributing them as having saved my arse from what would have been a messy crash (I was on the inside of a bus at the time).

Mr K - any chance you could shoot some pictures of yer wheels? Would be really good to see this pattern in the flesh so to speak. Cheers.

Good stuff here. Half way down.

http://www.geocities.com/spokeanwheel/lacingcf.htm

That's the link from the OP. :)

Oops. Shoulda clicky-d. Put it in the 'paste' thread too.
Ah well. You try to do good and it all backfires.

pip Mr K - any chance you could shoot some pictures of yer wheels? Would be really good to this pattern in the flesh so to speak. Cheers.

I'll take a few tonight and post them later.

New photos:

That should show how it looks well enough :)

What is the radial pattern like? Is it good or merely done for aesthetics?

Never run radial on your rear. It's lateral strength only. So front only, if at all.

You can use radial on the rear: http://www.geocities.com/spokeanwheel/lacingsr.htm#hr
E.g. some Mavics are non-drive side rear radial:

Asymmetric (radial one side, 2 cross the other) is not radial.

It's radial one side and not the other. Radial simply means the spokes aren't crossed.
I've never heard them called asymmetric.. people ask for a "radial/2-cross" wheel.

I've got Jobst Brandt's "The Bicycle Wheel" right here and I quote:

"Radial spokes carry loads just as well as crossed spokes, but they cannot transmit torque. They transmit torque only after the hub rotates ahead of the rim, making the spokes no longer truly radial."

He calls this spoke windup.

"In a radial rear wheel the windup that occurs while riding is small (less than two degrees). However, this motion increases spoke fatigue, and spoke rotation in the flange causes wear. As radial spokes windup during torque, they become appreciably tighter causing high rim stress and, in some circumstances, flange or rim failure."

"Even though they transmit no torque, front wheels should not be spoked radially because high radial stress can cause fatigue failure of their flanges. Flange fatigue takes time, so these do not occur immediately."

"Radial spoking has no aerodynamic advantage... because near the rim, where the spokes produce the most drag, they occupy exactly the same positions, regardless of [spoke] pattern."

Jobst Brandt dealing some scientific ownage there.

Yeah. He explains the whole theory behind how a wheels works from the ground up, and it's very convincing. There's a whole load of calculations in the back of the book, too, but I haven't had a look at them yet.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#half-radial (Note the reasons for using radial)
http://www.biketechreview.com/archive/wheel_review.htm (Moo)

i got a 36h cows doot / crows foot pattern they are one of the toughest builds