Active Oldest Votes. Summing up comments into an answer, including a few points of my own: More spokes are stronger; more holes in the rim weaken it. So a sweet spot must be found. Standard numbers are good, for hole count and spoke gauge Tourers have to keep going a long way from support, so durability counts see also brakes ; a little extra weight on a laden bike makes little difference unlike in a race.
Improve this answer. CW for a reason -- please add anything I've missed, or sort out my wording — Chris H. Add a comment. PaulD PaulD 29 1 1 bronze badge. I think the question is, why for example downhill mountain bikes that have even heavier loads and where weight does matter use thicker spokes and stronger rims instead of more spokes.
I think there is a different loading characteristic in Cx and DH bikes impluse vs time distributed load as the rider and suspension spreads the load over a longer period than the cargo load on a touring bike. I do believe marketing also plays a part.
Touring bikes are more utilitarian and considered not as "sexy" as the other bikes mentioned so there is less effort to "one-up" the competition. Think also about the difference in consequences of breaking a spoke on a CX circuit race where you've probably got at least a spare wheelset in the pit, vs breaking a spoke 40 miles from a bike shop in either direction. Also, think about the dynamics of racing. I agree with PaulD and JamieA: touring bikes are more about reliability.
This also means a 36 spoke wheel gets "less out of true" if a spoke breaks Useful for rim brakes and also, the increased load for the remaining spokes is less, so the entire wheel is less prone to break another spoke. Please look up "wind resistance" before claiming that unnecessary number of spokes do not have drawbacks. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password.
Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Version labels for answers. Linked Related Hot Network Questions. There are 32 spokes on the average bicycle wheel. The numbers can be as few as 16 or as many as Less spokes result a marginally better aerodynamic advantage, while more spokes mean a stronger wheel. Bikes intended for racing typically have a low spoke count while bikes built to bear a lot of weight come with a high spoke count.
The average spoke weight is 14 grams, but some special spokes intended for racing can weigh as little as 3 grams. In order to keep the wheel strong enough to support the weight of the rider, but to keep the wheel weight down to a minimum, manufacturers often put less spokes on the front wheel than on the rear, which bears most of the weight. Most people can sit on the same bike with two different sets of wheels with different spoke counts and not notice any difference at all.
Having a strong enough wheel, on the other hand is something everyone should care and worry about. If you take a look at the above table you will see that the spoke count is greatly influenced by how much stress and weight the wheel is subject to. The more stress and more weight the more spokes in general. There are certain outliers among them too.
For example, certain tandem bikes intended for road use, such as the Co-Motion Supremo, come with a low spoke count, but they are the exception to the rule. A higher spoke count means more connection points between the rim and the hub, which leads to better weight distribution among the spokes. This is true for both the weight of the rider and cargo, as well as stress coming from the road, such as a bump or a pothole. Having more spokes means that the energy is absorbed by more stress points, and each spoke is less likely to be over-stressed to the point of failure.
Each bike and wheel manufacturer specifies the maximum weight the bicycle can handle, but generally speaking, bikes that come with higher spoke count wheels are designed for heavier riders. Touring bikes, for example, are excellent bikes for heavy people. While many road bikes have 24 spoke wheels or less, and max out at kgs lbs including bike, rider and cargo, touring bikes, which often come with 36 spoke wheels can often take riders as heavy as heavy as kg lbs not including cargo.
Schmidt is probably the most reliable hub we sell as a hub generally. It happens to also deliver 3w of power whenever you need it. When you are looking at dynamo options you are looking for maximum reliability. So choose a hub that is reliable and builds into strong, stable wheels. Schmidt say you should service your hubs ideally every 50,km, however you can push that to ,km if you need to.
It is a bold claim and a perfect hub for long mileage in all conditions, often with loading. It is a great choice. I now disagree with the use of cup and cone bearings on pretty much any wheel. I can appreciate they play a role in cheaper wheels, however they do require adjustment, that requires cone spanners which is an annoying thing to take around. That can quite easily be done wrong and I have seen incorrect adjustment undertaken even by professional mechanics.
Incorrect adjustment can lead to damage of the balls, cones and cups or even crush the hub. When it comes to cones, balls and cups, the first two can be replaced, the final cannot. Normally you will only find cup and cone bearings now on very cheap hubs or shimano hubs — and my advice is to avoid them. Given that, I would also rule out anything other than a radial cartridge bearing.
There are some very good hubs out there that do use angular bearings which have a preload on them. Hubs that I would consider to be quite good for touring but potentially less than ideal are the following:. However, these have lower rider limits and the bearings last less long than some other hubs, so better for lighter use and shorter distances. They are very durable and you can get versions with steel freehub bodies which is ideal.
However, they do have angular contact cartridge bearings so they will need periodic adjustment and servicing. Royce, Titan and Venus hubs — these would tick all of my boxes, except, the rear hubs can accept a maximum of 14g spokes.
So the strongest wheels will not use Royce hubs. Although I would wager Royce hubs are among the very strongest out there. Royce views spokes as potentially sacrificial — so they would say use a 14g spoke, if it breaks, replace it — if your hubshell brakes, you are in real trouble.
DT Swiss — something like the is a good option generally. Reliable, durable, strong. However, they do also use an aluminium freehub body and I still generally like to see a steel freehub body on a touring hub.
They work well for adventure and endurance riding though and an alloy freehub is generally fine when you have a good quality cassette fitted to the appropriate torque 40nm. DCR Touring range — these have big shells, big axles, loads of bearings 4 front, 6 rear — all ABEC 5, TPI branded and treated for durability , a reliable freehub design, radial sealed cartridge bearings.
They are drilled specifically to accommodate 13g spokes, they can take a variety of axle interfaces. Steel freehub bodies too. The hubs come apart with 5mm allen keys, which is about as standard a tool as it gets. One small potential downside is you cannot run them with a Campagnolo freehub body.
Phil Wood touring hubset — If someone were to ask me, what is the toughest hub you can offer, it would almost certainly be Phil Wood.
Steel freehub, big bearings, big, thick, heavy steel axles, large shells. You can have disc or rim brake versions. I would like to see the hubs with individually sprung pawls and ideally with their pawls sitting on a larger diameter freehub seat. However, 5 pawls, each double row is certainly capable of receiving enormous torque and Iona and I use a Phil hub on the back of our tandem. You could use a shimano Alfine or similar hub on a touring bike.
However, experience has taught us that if you want a very durable, very reliable and versatile rear IG hub for touring, the only option really is Rohloff. We can offer the full range of hubs there, they do add weight and you will have to change the rear sprocket perhaps a little more often than you expect, however combining something like a Rohloff with a Schmidt has to be one of the ultimate touring wheelset choices.
You need to get the right hub and fitments for your bike, so just let us know what you are looking to do and we can advise there. If you build with a Rohloff at the back,you need to build the wheel differently.
We have another article covering details on that. However, for all other options, where possible, I always like to use Sapim Race spokes throughout except drive side rear and disc side front if applicable where I like to see the Sapim Strong spoke. Well there are quite a range of rims out there, but ideally we like to keep these things simple specially when it comes to touring where strength is king.
All of these have welded joints and all are tubeless compatible.
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