interesting spoke article from Zipp...

[AngryScientist]

http://www.zipp.com/_media/pdfs/technology/spokecount.pdf

from Conclusion:

Conclusion

In conclusion it seems that the basic conceptual design of the wheel, and it’s spokes, is more important than small detail changes in spoke count. Individually, these changes are moderate, but taken as a whole, the results are quite large. One could theorize that changing from 32 round to 32 oval spokes would provide a differential in wattage to spin, by as much as 10 watts, but to move from 32 round spokes to 18 or 20 ovalized ones can yield more than 20 watts of improvement. However, once these major improvements have been made, small changes in spoke shape or count are marginal at best. In the 404 test, we see that adding 12 additional spokes leaves us a possible increase in wattage of only 1-5 watts, and the move from 18 to 16 spokes seems to have essentially no benefit whatsoever, so the key is to be aware of what other factors may be sacrificed for these minute or nonexistent advantages.

[rice rocket]

That makes sense, there's only a finite amount of air you're passing through with the spokes.


That said, low spoke count wheels look pretty damn cool.

[Bob Loblaw]

That makes intuitive sense. You also have to figure that somewhere in there, maybe around the 20-24 spoke mark, the reduced number of spokes requires the rim to be significantly stronger = heavier = more rotating mass = sluggish feeling bike.

Interesting stuff.

BL

[ergott]

There are very few rims that actually build up well when the spoke count is lower than 20.

[Kontact]

That's some fuzzy math.

If a 32 round spoke wheel has a wattage of 100 (just for example).

And a 32 oval spoke wheel saves 10 watts for 90 watts total.

And a 20 spoke oval wheel saves 20 watts for 80.

But adding 12 oval spokes back to the 20 only adds 1-5 watts for a total of 81 to 85.



So does a 32 oval wheelset have a wattage of 90 or 81 to 85? :confused: At one point they say subtracting 12 spokes saves an additional 10 watts, but later say adding 12 spokes only increases it by 1-5.

[Jaq]

That makes sense, there's only a finite amount of air you're passing through with the spokes.


That said, low spoke count wheels look pretty damn cool.

Beauty's in the eye of the beholder; A Record (silver) hub, 36 spokes, silver rim, nickel-plated nipples, laced 3 leading - 3 trailing, is perhaps the most beautiful wheel in the Universe.

And an absolute b---c to keep polished.

[tiretrax]

When I read the conclusions, I wonder how much government money went into that study. The general conclusions seem pretty self evident - change to a wind-cheating shape and reduce the spoke count and the effort to spin the wheel will decrease.

[jpw]

And an absolute b---c to keep polished.

b---c?