What Are Double Butted Spokes?

double-butted spokes are larger on each end, tapering to a slightly smaller center length. ex: 14/15 db spokes are 14 gage on each end and the middle long section is 15 gage.

some claim they are as strong as straight gage 14 spokes, with a small amount of weight savings. I don't know. most of my traditional wheelsets are 32 spoke 14/15 db, but I had one 28 spoke wheelset built with straight 14. I don't have problems with any of them.

The idea of double-butted spokes is that a spoke suffers most of its stress at the ends where its joined to the rim and hub, so you can make the middle "ess-stressed section of the spoke using a narrower guage which is obviously lighter...

I have built many times many wheels with strait gage spokes. I personally think that they "feel right" when I get them up to tension. I have been informed that butted spokes are stronger. I guess the reason is how the spoke is formed.

Personally I feel that a wheels strength has little to do with the type of spokes but how the tension is uniformly spread over the whole wheel. The ability of a wheel to support ungodly amounts of force and remain true repeatedly is a miracle of mechanical physics.

When I was first taught how to build wheels the number of spokes was generally 36. It was standard to lace the wheel so that it had a parallel spokes at the valve hole and cross at the joint. The reason for this was that early sew up rims were not welded but stuck together with a bit of wood crammed between the two ends of the rim. I have built wheels with steel, stainless, carbon fiber and titanium. The only problem I had was with carbon fiber, Although they seemed to work ok wile I was riding them, they shattered when the bike fell over before I could get it on the roof rack. In doing so it also broke the hub flange on my front wheel, boy was I [censored].😎