New wheels what spoke pattern, Radial OK?

Hi people firstly I would like to say thanks for all the info that I have gleaned from here when first building my bike.

I am about to lay down some coin for a new set of wheels for my fixy. I was wondering why on most fixed geared bikes you see the front wheel typically has a 32h standard spoke pattern build.
Is it that a lower spoke count hub with a radial spoke pattern is not allowed for competition use ?
Is it a looks thing?
Is it a price thing?

edit:just wondering because I personally like the look of a radial front wheel. Looks clean and simple to me.

Radial is weaker so for the street 3x is the way to go. Radial I do agree does look good though. Just built up a bike for my girl with a radial front wheel. Pics to come. Unless your tricking or heavy radial should hold up just fine though.

Sheldon Brown has a bit to say on radial spoking <a href=“http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#radial”>here.</a>

So I take it you are buying, not building? If you are building a radial is far easier to build IMHO. For a start no crossed spokes makes it dead easy to lace, and the lack of crossed spokes also means you don’t have to worry about de-stressing spokes. As far as aesthetics are concerned I prefer matching lacing patterns, but that’s just my personal taste.

At this stage I was thinking of buying pre built wheels.
I have had a go at rebuilding a 27" wheel that I had cleaned up, first go was a disaster :roll: Abbotsford cycles have the wheels I want already made up for 450 bucks. I cant see myself beating that price just buying all the bits and building up myself. That said I’m not getting too excited and using phil wood hubs though.

Yep good point, I hadn’t thought of that. The heavy Radial spoke pattern does look sweet though.

Thanks P!N20, Sheldon always has good words of advice.

From my experiance when I broke a spoke on my Giant’s front wheel that is radially spoked the wheel became almost instantly unrideable. The extra 50 kays I did on it in that state didn’t do it much good… Maybe I have talked myself out of it :?

I ride radial on the front and radial on the rear off-side on all my bikes.
Onmy flip/flop hub and 3 cross on the drive Ive even flipped ( or flopped…?? ) it around and rode radial on the rear drive side for ages. I’m 100kgs and have never broken a spoke in over 10 yrs of riding / racing. I also ride a radial spoke 16h front wheel and is as strong as anything.

Unless your Shane Kelly, radial everything.

Hey Adam what hubs do you use low/high flange 32h/28h/other?

I have heard bad things about low flange 32h+ because there is little material to hold the spoke? Apparently you can rip the flange off.

I think everybody has heard this… its on Sheldon’s page, but does anyone actually know someone this has happened to?

I use high flange track hubs 32h. I have used 24 and 28’s in the past.
My 16 spoke is a low flange paired hub.

I have seen it thousands of times, ripping the flange apart,
but mainly on rear ( crossed ) paired spoking patterns
with the flange cut out, and some Shimano low profile
road hubs

I had a mid 80’s 36H low flange Campy Record go, that I had buit radially into a 18H rim. Back then though, radial wasn’t common - more recently low flange hubs generally seem to have more meat around the spoke hole to accommodate radial lacing.

I replaced the hub with a late 90s low flange Campy Record laced the same, and it has survived the last 10 years fine.

If ther’s anyone that knows about crazy low count spoke patterns it’s superman. Front wheel with the snowflake/ radial lacing is a thing of strange beauty, and not many spokes.

Yes, I know several people who’ve broken hub flanges with radial spoking. If you are going to radial spoke a wheel, choose your hubs carefully.

Yep indeed! I saw them the other night…wild!