Ksyrium stiffness....

[Jl]

Settle an arguement....

On a normal 'handbuilt' wheel, ie. Open Pro rims with Ultegra hubs, etc., the rear non drive side
spokes are obviously not tensioned very high, say 60-65kg I believe..

On a Ksyrium rear wheel the non drive spokes seem to be very stiff and have a lot of tension. Does
this result in a much more efficient wheel? Much better energy transfer / windup? Or is there really
no noticeable difference in the ride? I'm thinking I could gain about 3mph with these....lol...just
kidding.... Seriously though, just wondering what difference having the high tension on the non
drive side makes compared to normal wheels..

 

[Qui Si Parla Ca]

JL-<< On a normal 'handbuilt' wheel, ie. Open Pro rims with Ultegra hubs, etc., the rear non drive
side spokes are obviously not tensioned very high, say 60-65kg I believe..
>><BR><BR>
<< On a Ksyrium rear wheel the non drive spokes seem to be very stiff and have a lot of tension.
Does this result in a much more efficient wheel? Much better energy transfer / windup? Or is there
really no noticeable difference in the ride? >><BR><BR>

You have to determine what the 'optimum' tension of aluminum spokes of this diameter is and then see
if these spokes are there.

There is no doubt that aluminum spokes don't 'flex' very much or they will fail(altho we have seen
more than a few ksyriums with broken spokes)...I don't know of anybody that has tested the flex of
these wheels-Damon???

Peter Chisholm Vecchio's Bicicletteria 1833 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535 http://www.vecchios.com "Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

 

[Andrew Lee]

"JL" <[email protected]> wrote in message

> On a normal 'handbuilt' wheel, ie. Open Pro rims with Ultegra hubs, etc., the rear non drive side
> spokes are obviously not tensioned very high, say 60-65kg I believe..
>
> On a Ksyrium rear wheel the non drive spokes seem to be very stiff and
have
> a lot of tension. Does this result in a much more efficient wheel? Much better energy transfer /
> windup? Or is there really no noticeable difference in the ride?

It makes no difference. As long as no spokes go slack, the tension of a set of spokes has no effect
on the stiffness of a wheel, assuming all else is the same. In this case the spokes are different
and different spokes have different stiffnesses... I'm not sure how the thicker Al spokes compare to
thinner steel spokes, but it's probably similar enough.

Hub wind-up depends on the size of the hub flange (larger = less wind-up) and the spoke angle (the
more tangential the spoking, the less the wind-up). In any case, it doesn't make a difference in
energy transfer because the (minimal) flex is elastic anyway.