Does spoke count affect strength?

[helston90]

Looking around for my next C2W bike and noticed a lot of this years (2014) bikes have a lot lower spoke count than my current one- would this affect their wheel strength? or do I need to become lighter? especially on our 3rd world UK roads?

Example my 2013 rapid 4 has 32 front and rear and seems structurally sound, one of my shortlist is the Fuji Sportif 1.1 which has 28 front 32 rear- a little less, another is the Trek Madone 2.1 which is sporting 24 front and rear, then is the Canyon Roadlite AL 6.0 which comes with Mavic Aksium WTS which have only 20 spokes each.

Surely they will be weaker? More than happy to be proved wrong by science/ experience!

 

[lozcs]

I've got a set of Shimano R501's which are 20/24 - had them for about a year and 4/5k miles - they've taken some battering and still run lovely and true.

 

[PK99]

Looking around for my next C2W bike and noticed a lot of this years (2014) bikes have a lot lower spoke count than my current one- would this affect their wheel strength? or do I need to become lighter? especially on our 3rd world UK roads?

Example my 2013 rapid 4 has 32 front and rear and seems structurally sound, one of my shortlist is the Fuji Sportif 1.1 which has 28 front 32 rear- a little less, another is the Trek Madone 2.1 which is sporting 24 front and rear, then is the Canyon Roadlite AL 6.0 which comes with Mavic Aksium WTS which have only 20 spokes each.

Surely they will be weaker? More than happy to be proved wrong by science/ experience!

http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

How Many Spokes?
Up until the early 1980s, virtually all adult bikes had 72 spokes.
32 front/40 rear was the standard for British bikes, 36 front and rear for other countries. The exception was super-fancy special purpose racing wheels, which might have 32 spokes front and rear.

The Great Spoke Scam: In the early '80s a clever marketeer hit upon the idea of using only 32 spokes in wheels for production bikes. Because of the association of 32 spoke wheels with exotic, high-performance bikes, the manufacturers were able to cut corners and save money while presenting it as an "upgrade!" The resulting wheels were noticeably weaker than comparable 36 spoke wheels, but held up well enough for most customers.

Since then, this practice has been carried to an extreme, with 28-, 24-, even 16-spoke wheels being offered, and presented as it they were somehow an "upgrade."

Actually, such wheels normally are not an upgrade in practice. When the spokes are farther apart on the rim, it is necessary to use a heavier rim to compensate, so there isn't usually even a weight benefit from these newer wheels!

This type of wheel requires unusually high spoke tension, since the load is carried by fewer spokes. If a spoke does break, the wheel generally becomes instantly unridable. The hub may break too; see John Allen's article.

If you want highest performance, it is generally best to have more spokes in the rear wheel than the front. For instance, 28/36 is better than 32/32. People very rarely have trouble with front wheels:

• Front wheels are symmetrically dished.
• Front wheels carry less weight.
• Front wheels don't have to deal with torsional loads (unless there's a hub brake).

If you have the same number of spokes front and rear, either the front wheel is heavier than it needs to be, or the rear wheel is weaker than it should be.

 

[zizou]

Depends on the wheel and quality of the built but generally the more spokes the stronger the wheel

That isn't to say a wheel with 20 spokes wont be strong enough though - its just that with a lower spoke count should a spoke go then the wheel will be much more likely to go out of true to the extent that it will be unrideable compared to the same happening with a wheel with a 32 count.

 

[Rob3rt]

Less spokes = less weight = more aero but it also = greater tension per spoke = a wheel like a pringle when one breaks.

Overall strength should be adequate regardless!

 

[HLaB]

FWIW IIRC my old Khasims were lightly spoked, they also went against Sheldon guide as i think they had the same pattern on the front as back (IIRC the new ones dont in line with Sheldon) and they stayed true, where as I've had more heavily spoked rims on the commuters go out of true; as zizou says there more to it than just spoke count.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Being a FB compared to most of the whippets round my way, I`m reluctant to ride on anything less than 32 spokes However a decent handbuilt wheel I assume with lower spoke count should take a bit of punishment ?