American Classic rear hub flange spacing

Good question:why arn't all hubs like this. Both theoretically and empirically this works. Ritchey
does it also. Left side spokes on "normal" hubs net aprox. 50% of drive side tension. This is not
enough for torque transmittal or weight bearing. They are just place holders.The ritchey zero system
with offset hole placement nets about 90% of driveside tension on left side,allowing fewer spokes to
be used safely. The American Classic hub has the right flange 2mm to the left unfortunately, so I
lace it with right side spokes elbows out to get more outboard displacement. Tom

--
Bruni Bicycles "Where art meets science" brunibicycles.com
410.426.3420 Mark Vieselmeyer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I was just reading about an American Classic rear hub that has the

non-drive

Quoted message said:

side flange closer to the center so the wheel will have less dish. They claim this makes the wheel
stronger. If that's so, why aren't all rear

hubs

Quoted message said:

like this? Does the narrower flange spacing make it harder to keep the wheel true?

- mark

"Mark Vieselmeyer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I was just reading about an American Classic rear hub that has the

non-drive

Quoted message said:

side flange closer to the center so the wheel will have less dish. They claim this makes the wheel
stronger. If that's so, why aren't all rear

hubs

Quoted message said:

like this? Does the narrower flange spacing make it harder to keep the wheel true?

Moving the left-side flange rightward reduces the dish, meaning the two sides carry more even spoke
tension. This is a good thing. As for why aren't all wheels done like that: Standards take time to
evolve, and only recently with the move to running so many cogs on the back has dish become so
severe. Compound that with the trend to low-spoke-count wheels and you find a need that didn't exist
before. MTB's are less affected since they run 135mm rear spacing and more spokes, generally. The
above applies to assymetric rear rims also. Combine an offset hub & assymetric rim, as Ritchey,
Bontrager, Velocity (& others) do, and you have theoretically the best setup for a 9-10spd rear
wheel. The only downside is less lateral stiffness from the rear wheel due to the smaller bracing
angle from the narrow flange width. Not such a big deal on a rear wheel, but there's a limit to how
narrow you would want to go before the wheel became susceptible to failure from side loads (more
applicable to mtb's).

SB