Adding spokes to wheels.

[zerodish]

I got ahold of several books on bridge design from 1880 to 1920. The old timers built rivited plates and pulled the apart. The rule of thumb for drilling holes in thin sheets is the holes should be 2 hole diameters apart and 1.5 diameters from the edge. Bicycle wheels are way past that and there have been a lot of failures. Santana had broken flanges with 48 spoke wheels when they first came out because the spoke holes were too close together. Ebikes are breaking flanges because the holes are not far enough from the edge. I have been building 45 spokes for a while and testing them under insane conditions. I have built several wheels with 36 spokes on one side just to see how stiff they were. I can't tell the differance in tortion. There is also the problems of spokes interfering with each other. These were pulled apart because the spoke holes were too close together and I am not that crazey. Radial spokes break flanges unless there is more that 1.5 diameters distance from the flange. You will notice I put my radial spokes deep within the flange. Every thing works fine and this is now my standard wheel. Interstates are graded at 6 percent which for me works out to 42 mph. This is something I do on a daily bases. I tend to run 165 pounds on the back wheel and have put about 50000 miles on my 45 spoke wheels. https://flickr.com/search/?text=45%20spoke%20wheel%20zerodish&view_all=1