For the wheelbuilders...

[AndreZA]

I stumbled across this site. I have no idea if or how it works.

 

 

 

http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/spokes/spoke_pattern_explorer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Johan Bornman]

Thanks. What it does is tell you whether or not your planned spoke pattern will work or not. On some hubs you want to build 4 X and you're sometimes not sure if the spokes will cross on the hub or not. They shouldn't. This software tells you yah or nay.

 

Howver, for small flange hubs the "divide by nine" rule is a good rule of thumb. 36 divided by 9 = 4, which means you can go up to 4 X on a small flange road bike hub.

 

Say it was a 32-spoke hub: 32 divided by nine = 3.5 The maximum crossings you can do would be 3 and a half....three actually. Four cross would thus not work.

 

But, nowadays the wheels don't have as many spokes and the crossings are limited to 3 at most. The odd tandem wheel still needs 4 X but their flanges are large, so you can even go 5 X if you wanted.