Asymmetrical Lacing Patterns...

I have rebuild my MTB real wheel on a new rim. While fighting to true it many times in the past I became very aware of the uneven tension in a heavily dished wheel.

So ive become intrigued by mixed lacing, and after reading some of the info here:

http://spokeanwheel.110mb.com/lacingsr.htm

I am tempted to do my rear mtb wheel Radial on the drive side.

However I am having difficulty getting my head round having the DRIVE side, radial!

All the techie stuff says it will help balance tension for a stronger more reliable wheel which is what I need. But I really need some re-assurance and possibly some tips on working out the spoke lengths.

Has anybody here done this before?

i think this is worth a search, before starting an entire new thread

I searched lots, closest thing I could find was a thread about hybrid crows foot. And the whole radial wheel debate for heavy people etc. Nothing about rear geared wheels.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#half-radial

i doubt someone will have more info than any of the websites on the internet

also try Mike Garcia for advise, he may help with some advise.

Okay, I could be wrong on this, but I believe Dogsballs and ehren fried chicken might be the best people to talk to?

Radial on the DRIVE side? Never seen it even on those top end road wheels. If you're building a crow's foot or hybrid crow's foot there are radial spokes in the pattern but not all of them. As far as I know the radial pattern won't be able to take the torsional forces that will be generated on the drive side of the rear wheel. Non-drive side fine though.

When you're building a heavily dished geared rear wheel I find it much easier to work on the dish first. When building more symmetrically dished wheels I tend to do the dishing part at a later stage. The tensions will be quite uneven between one side and the other but that's just how it is.

I think that quite a few people have read and studied the content on the link you've provided. So much so that I've requests to build rear wheels that are crow's foot on the drive side and 2-cross on the non-drive side. And they wanted a 3-cross crow's foot rather than a 2-cross.

Radial on the DRIVE side? Never seen it even on those top end road wheels.

Mavic Ksyriums have it. They call it 'Isopulse' - for better response, apparently. Does that make it good? Who knows?

Fulcrums and Campagnolo wheels have them too.

The radials offer lateral strength and the crossed spokes on the other side offer torque strength.

It's perfectly fine to do it. The drive force goes down the crossed side.

I've wondered about this before. I mean, if you apply torque to a hub via the drive side cogs, is it really going to transmitt this torque to the rim in a drive side bias fashion? Would'nt this require the hub to flex?

So my thinking would be that so long as one side is adequatly crossed, you're OK*.

(*i think, maybe, I'm not sure, probably)

Really interesting... I'm going to build up a set of campag low-flange 36h hubs soon.. Perhaps I should experiment a bit with the lacing, though I don't think I'll be running radial on the front, but perhaps 1x would be okay. and then half-radial on the rear..

I <3 1x front, its lovely. Did exactly that on my Campag low flange Pistas.

This one always bugs me. Everyone says if you're mixing radial with crossed, it's radial on the NDS, except Chris Juden (CTC) who says we've all got it wrong ... What does he know that everyopne else doesn't?

I reckon its best left alone.

Then again Jacqui bought a complete bike off a legendary TTer, who had her wheels build ALL radial front and rear.

Then again Jacqui bought a complete bike off a legendary TTer, who had her wheels build ALL radial front and rear.

All radial makes no sense at all. Theres some horrible cheap BMX's they sell in the bike shop I work at that are full radial on the rear. Im always shocked at how long they last but its probably due to being 48spoke & only 20" with a high flange hub. Plus Ive only ever seen tiny kids on em.

TT wheels would probably be 20 spoke etc, which would make matters worse. The bike must have some of those weird hubs for shoulder-less spokes.

well its not goiong to fail immediatley is it, pro's can compromise longevity for weight,
its just that for optimum strength they suggest that you shouldnt do all radial,

Radial on the DRIVE side? Never seen it even on those top end road wheels. If you're building a crow's foot or hybrid crow's foot there are radial spokes in the pattern but not all of them. As far as I know the radial pattern won't be able to take the torsional forces that will be generated on the drive side of the rear wheel. Non-drive side fine though.

When you're building a heavily dished geared rear wheel I find it much easier to work on the dish first. When building more symmetrically dished wheels I tend to do the dishing part at a later stage. The tensions will be quite uneven between one side and the other but that's just how it is.

I think that quite a few people have read and studied the content on the link you've provided. So much so that I've requests to build rear wheels that are crow's foot on the drive side and 2-cross on the non-drive side. And they wanted a 3-cross crow's foot rather than a 2-cross.

If you want radial one side and x cross the other in terms of spoke tenssion it make sense to have the radial on the drive side. You have to be confident in the strength of your hub.

However for practical purposes I think I'd go with some kind of 3 cross non drive side and a 2x crow foot or two cross on the drive side.

It would be some fairly simple trig to work out what spoke combination would give you the most even tension.

Bear also in mind that you could also start doing things like have inside butted on the drive side and double butted on the the non drive side. If you started bringing in Youngs modulus e.t.c you could really start to get some good results.

This one always bugs me. Everyone says if you're mixing radial with crossed, it's radial on the NDS, except Chris Juden (CTC) who says we've all got it wrong ... What does he know that everyopne else doesn't?

I reckon its best left alone.

His argument for radial is solid regarding evening out spoke tension. Sometime people just get stuck in an industry rut. People tend to just follow what had been done before. Radial non drive side on a dished wheel is just sill as regards lateral wheel strength; which is the wheel strength most people are interested in.

Ok Tommy, thanks. I *think *I get it. Good to know I wasn;t going mad, as i couldn;t find MrJuden's article on it when I had a quick shufty for it.

I wrote to him about evening tension out for a dished 6 speed hub and he was really helpful, recommended I uses DB on the NDS and 'single butted' on the DS (as they have less elasticity and lots of strength around the shoulder section). The difference was really noticeable when truing, as I had to use about double the turn on the NDS than the DS to get the same effect. And I pulled a couple of eyelets up too as the DS was so taught. :{

It can get pretty complicated with dished wheels.

When I'm less busy I may write a program to do some kind of spoke tension difference minimization iterating through different combinations of lacing patterns and spoke combinations. It's an idea I'll try to remember to get round to.

I guess the biggest problem with riding radial drive-side and non-radial non-driveside would be that spoketension will be very low on the non-driveside..

ugh. i don't get wheel lacing at all, though i know i probably understand it by this point in my life... this thread very little sense to me

I guess the biggest problem with riding radial drive-side and non-radial non-driveside would be that spoketension will be very low on the non-driveside..

Hence using DB which have more stretch... so you can at least apply some decent tension and let the stretch keep them from pulling too much that way. I think. ... Teddy: me too a bit, but having built a couple of pairs now I'm starting to get to grips with it.

Would like to know what (actual) benefits people think 'crows foot' have? I sure do like the LOOK of them! I seem to recall Our Great Leader mentioning loving the way it was riding for him. What does it achieve? Would you use it front and rear, say for a symmetrical rear wheel?

Would like to know what (actual) benefits people think 'crows foot' have? I sure do like the LOOK of them! I seem to recall Our Great Leader mentioning loving the way it was riding for him. What does it achieve? Would you use it front and rear, say for a symmetrical rear wheel?

I would say thats its mainly cosmetic, but my highly theoretical 2p..

...spokes flex to a varying degree, depending on length and angle. By mixing lengths and angles, you can dial in the wheel stiffnes/comfort levels. Thus achieving a wheel which will dampen uneven roads in a more proggressive manner.

Sounds like BS to me though, and I wrote it.

Heh. I dig it.

I'm going to try it out.

Finally, it all comes out of the woodwork!

Tommy, you seem like some sort of wheelsmith genius. If you ever get round to making an app/guide it would be really awesome.

Well. I was sort of derailing since I'm starting to talk about Crows foot. But I suppose a mix of Crows foot and radial could be fun!

...
Tommy, you seem like some sort of wheelsmith genius. If you ever get round to making an app/guide it would be really awesome.

+1

No I'm not, arup, dogsballs et el have alot more wheel building experience than me, I'm just apply some physics + my limited knowledge to the problem. With this I would like to write a program to get some hard numbers to do some scientific comparisons. It's a very doable task, it's just the time to write the program.