Jobst Brandt also talked about the wheel "standing" on its lowest spokes (equating a reduction in tension with compression). It's annoyed a lot of people over the years. He was correct but his choice of words didn't help much.
I enjoyed a hilly 200 on Thursday and, inter alia, thought about wheels 'standing' on their spokes during the 100,000 odd revolutions.
From Job Brandt's book '
the Bicycle Wheel':
Page 10
"THE WHEEL STANDS ON ITS [BOTTOM] SPOKES
"Of course the wheel is not supported by the bottom spokes only. Without the rest of the spokes, the bottom ones would have no tension. Standing, in this case,means that the spokes at the bottom are the ones that change stress; they are being shortened and respond structurally as rigid columns. They are rigid as long as they remain tensioned."
If the term "standing" is taken to mean 'effecting a change in stress which shortens them (from their static tensioned state)' then fine - odd use of 'standing'.
If Brandt is merely using the 'standing' idea as a medium for helping people realise that wheels don't 'hang' from the top spokes (their tension remains essentially the same as when the wheel is unloaded), that's useful if it achieves the aim without introducing confusion.
I have difficulty with the idea that the tensioned spokes "respond structurally as [if they were] rigid columns" unless what Brandt means is that under decreased stress they shorten as a rigid column would. But that doesn't mean the bottom spokes are 'rigid columns'. And for the idea that a wheel "stands on its bottom spokes" those supports need to be rigid - they aren't: they're thin, flexible wire spokes.
Would one say that tensioned elastic bands "respond structurally as rigid columns" or describe them as "rigid as long as they remain tensioned"?
