Road Wheels & Road Wheel Recommendations?

dafuq?

10 spokes, anyone?

You called?

Stock Rolf-Prima TT8

Or this hand-built wheel made by Roues-Artisanales for Jeannie Longo

And of course, Longo wasn't satisfied, so went to 8 spokes

For a rear, 10 would be a bit weird. You need a count divisible by 4 for a symmetric build or 3 for a half radial wheel.

Maybe if you started from a symmetrical 8 spoke radial pattern, and replaced 2 of the drive-side spokes each with a pair of thinner tangential spokes that meet the rim at about the same spot, that might just work.

I would go 48 on the rear to be on the safe side.

I'd go ∞ on the rear to be on the fast side.

I would go rear.

Er...

Who is this EdwardZ chap and where the fuck did he come from?

Just do a little search and connect the dots. I don't hide.

I'd go ∞ on the rear to be on the fast side.

Increasing spoke count does not increase wheel reliability. The magic numbers 40, 36 and 32 were arrived at through empirical observation. It was long ago found that a properly built 36-spoke wheel could continue to be used with a broken or missing spoke but that with 32 the wheel starts to pretzel. The 40 spoked wheel has more or less become obsolete in this application due to the observation that little was being gained over 36-- especially combined with the improvements in spokes and shorter usage cycles of wheels which has significantly reduced the frequency of spoke failures. I've posted here links to FEM analysis of the bicycle wheel and it confirms with the empirical revelation.

In all of this I'm reminded of a wheel that Paul Liu (Lew wheels) developed back in the early mid-1990s.

United States Patent 5,490,719
Lew February 13, 1996
Racing wheel

Abstract
A racing wheel for a vehicle such as a bicycle. The wheel includes a rotationally stationary inner component connectable to the bicycle, a rotatable outer hoop having a bearing engaging surface, a ground engaging tread disposed on the outer hoop, and bearings mounted on the inner component to be rotationally stationary therewith. The bearings each include a support surface contoured to operatively engage the outer hoop bearing engaging surface such that the outer hoop is axially and radially supported relative to the inner component to allow rotation therebetween. The bearings are positioned around the inner component at particularly selected locations to achieve high wheel performance.

Inventors: Lew; Paul E. (Indianapolis, IN)
Assignee: Wear and Tear, Inc. (Indianapolis, IN)
Family ID: 26865200
Appl. No.: 08/276,258
Filed: July 18, 1994

Increasing spoke count does not increase wheel reliability.

So now you're directly contradicting everything you said before?

Disregarding your obviously trolling and verbose repetitiveness, you completely missed the point of my post. ∞ spokes = disc wheel, the only choice for a rear wheel where not prohibited by regulation.

So now you're directly contradicting everything you said before?

I keep forgetting the failings of the school system... More = beyond 36 or 40 spokes.

Disregarding your obviously trolling and verbose repetitiveness, you completely missed the point of my post. ∞ spokes = disc wheel, the only choice for a rear wheel where not prohibited by regulation.

Disc wheels are not wheels with infinite numbers of spokes. Traditional disk wheels are spoked wheels with a foam core and covered in a laminate. In the old days it was popular to cover regular spoked wheels with a mylar cover. The best current designs tend to use synthetic fibers such as Aramide (Kevlar) to build a tensile structure. The most interesting disc wheel I've ever seen was one a friend developed with the French. It used an interesting combination of fibers to make a wheel almost without dish--- literally when viewed from the front it seemed to hide behind the seat-tube. The wheel was completly tuned to the bicycle frame--- and it weighed, if I recall correctly, under 600g.

Here is a picture of a spoked version:

What do the best disc wheels offer over the best deep section wheels? Under ideal conditions @ 50 kmh the tests I've seen tend to put the number at something like 5 watts (I don't recall what the above disc got but it was a special case where the wheel/frame and other components were matched to cyclist etc.). This is, of course, a significant magnitude for an Olympic track event but ....

I keep forgetting humor

... no?

Humour, or 'humor' as the Americans call it (clearly believing there's no you in humour) is the phenonemon of funniness, whether that's creating funniness or perceiving funniness. Should jokes have punchlines? Does laughing at alternative comedy - you'll remember the fashion for this in the 80s - mean that a situation is actually funny. I researched some jokes for many years, though admittedly not since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and yes, some of them were funny. Would the humour stand the test of time? We soon discovered that fads were decidedly lacking in any resilient hilarity. Did people laugh at slapstick? Yes in very niche applications. But in real world situations most people would find greater humour in a reliably constructed knock-knock joke or even the casual prejudice that has fallen out of favour in the bit of my lifetime I feel out-of-kilter with. How many jokes is enough? Some people will risk a set consisting of just a handful, but if one joke dies, all humour might be lost. A 32, 36, or 40 joke routine works much better. Traditional humour has sufficient tension and robustness without sacrificing widespread appeal for a marginal zeitgeisty edge. This can be improved more readily with stagecraft and timing anyway. Laughing is the only reliable indicator of humour, and it is the exhalation of short breaths, something that even rats have been shown to do.

Engineering types.. that's you tester.. what do you think about this bead retention change:

http://www.rouesartisanales.com/article-20839536.html

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/how-much-lew-racings-us15000-wheels-12670/

$15k :-) Dibs.

Position is, of course, a bit complicated since one needs to find an optimum between aerodynamics, power and efficiency. Its also complicated by the observation that the greatest aerodynamic and strategic benefit is to "suck someones wheels". The advantage of drafting is ENORMOUS. Interestingly the effect of wind resistance in the pack is different than being at the head--- wheels and frame interaction become more and rider position less important.

Thanks for the info...

^^^ compare the rouesartisanales article with http://www.notubes.com/literature/BST.pdf

I think they're both right that conventional side-wall hook geometry is mechanically horrible, and what keeps clinchers on rims is not the hook but the bead being stretched tight onto the bead-seat. Stan's 'stored energy' terminology is a bit bollocks, but tyres deforming near the ground contact patch and rubbing on the top of the side wall is a plausible effect that would add to rolling resistance, and something your link doesn't address.

Disc wheels are not wheels with infinite numbers of spokes. Traditional disk wheels are spoked wheels with a foam core and covered in a laminate...

We could debate the meanings of infinity and traditional here, your knowledge base clearly stems from a time long before anybody could reasonably call any disc wheel type 'traditional', and all of the types you mention have been used throughout the modern history of disc wheels up to the present day. However, if we disregard the inferior "spoked wheel + fairing" offerings, true disc wheels can be treated mathematically as having an infinite number of spokes, whether they are pre-tensioned or otherwise.

Engineering types.. that's you tester.. what do you think about this

As the article states, it relies entirely on the high modulus of the tyre bead fibres for security. The hooked rim uses a tyre independent approach, whereby the tyre volume has to be decreased for the bead to move radially outwards, whereas the "new" (i.e. ancient, from the time before high pressure tyres) design permits a continuous expansion of the tyre volume as the bead extends.

I keep forgetting the failings of the school system... More = beyond 36 or 40..

Tandemists and trick cyclists are not taken in by your bullshit, and keep buying 48 hole hubs and rims.

As the article states, it relies entirely on the high modulus of the tyre bead fibres for security. The hooked rim uses a tyre independent approach, whereby the tyre volume has to be decreased for the bead to move radially outwards, whereas the "new" (i.e. ancient, from the time before high pressure tyres) design permits a continuous expansion of the tyre volume as the bead extends.

Is the tyre going to peel off when I mess up a corner? What about if I underinflate my tyre? How important is tyre choice with these rims? Would Jesus ride them?

Engineering types.. that's you tester.. what do you think about this bead retention change:

You should know Paul Lew or Lew Wheels business failed and the last time I read anything about him the man himself now works for Reynolds wheels ..

How much of his ideas Reynolds have taken on board is hard to tell ?

http://velonews.competitor.com/2009/09/news/interbike-2009-the-new-deep-reynolds-carbon-clinchers-deep-valley-double-thick-walls-and-no-hook-can-handle-extreme-pressure_98523 ?

The ONLY answer for wheels is to go to your local wheel builder and get a set built up. My favourite is currently Mavic rims on Royce hubs built up by Harry Rowlands. Light and bomb-proof. Factory built wheels are just a marketing ploy to get you to spend money.

Are you talking to me?