Spinergy did it many years ago.

UHMwPE is just the wrong material for the job. Why would you want spokes that creep?

They still do, however the idea never took off. Are we looking at the future? Is this the next disk brake trend?

Spinerhy seem completely different than these. Spox had huge, fat spokes. Squishy and aero as a brick. These are supposed to be more similar to bladed and much lighter.

I had a set of xaero wheels which were almost the same as the spox. The spokes were pretty fat.

I am curious about what the creep rate is. Is it possible that the rate is low enough so as not to effect performance over the normal life of a wheel?

rich

Nice. These would definitely complete an ultralight build.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

I saw what you did there.

Isn't the aerodynamics the most important with spokes? So you do not want spokes with a round cross-section.

Nah. The most important part of spokes is their ability to hold tension, and not snap in half.

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Alex Arman

Strava

I feel like carbon fiber is better suited to this application.

I personally use angel hair pasta for my spokes. After I use them for a ride I have the perfect amount of pasta for dinner for two.

Hello GreenPease and All,

What is this at $17K +? And I thought bike wheels were expensive.

http://www.apsltd.com/...spoke-70-1800mm.html




http://www.cyclingweekly.com/...raphene-frame-260002

Maybe Graphene spokes one of these days .... ? Graphene spokes so thin and light they would cut your finger (or leg) off if you touched them.

A single Graphene thread strung like horsehair on a violin bow .... could be used as a chef's knife and would not require sharpening.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Like the Giant EXT wheels that Mike Burrows designed?
Or Spinergy Rev-X?
Or Specialized Trispoke?

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Developing aero, fit and other fun stuff at Red is Faster

Not sure if this was intended sarcastically or not, but I'd tend to agree. Only problem is that carbon would be super hard to install yourself

Hello imswimmer328 and All,

https://www.bikerumor.com/...n-to-wheel-building/

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

 So these cloth spokes for training and the carbon ones for racing sounds pretty nice. Thanks for sharing!

Bonded composite joints are very strong. Considering how it's loaded, I would be no less confident in its strength than an ordinary spoke. My only issue with these is that they'd be easily damaged from direct impacts on the spokes, so definitely better to use on race day only wheels.

Hello imswimmer328 and All,

To your point .... as I recall from many many years ago there were some carbon fiber spokes but they were discontinued due to failure on side impact. Hopefully with their good reputation the current carbon fiber and other exotic material spoke manufacturers have created a more more resilient product.

Reminds me that Clark Rasmussen, Velomax, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5487592 , (straight pull spokes) built wheels for me that are still in the garage. Some of my wheels have titanium spokes but Clark had to tension them more than steel spokes he said. After all these years they are still true though.

http://www.wheelbuilder.com/spoke-selection.html Wheelbuilder comments on spokes.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

I had a pair of those! I had to look it up just now, they were called Fiber Flight spokes. They were pretty cool, but fairly fragile from the side. I had a pair of spinergy spox wheels too. I've had some weird wheels over the years I guess. I think mostly it was because of those postcards in the bicycle retailer magazine for employee purchase deals. They were irresistible in my teenage years, haha.

In general creep curves look like this (source)



The creep rate is not constant in time and a function of temperature. The way around this is to increase the cross section area so much that stress is very low. Since the fibers are not straight but are braided to form a rope, there are some further non linear effects at low stress. Why anybody would like a spoke made of such a material is beyond me. Dyneema and similar fibers are fantastic for running rigging but not a great idea for standing rigging.

Carbon is perfect but the terminations present a challenge. The side impact case is not a problem but only if tension is high enough. Anybody who visited the METS trade show a couple of years ago will have had the chance to hit a carbon rigging cable with an alloy tube as hard as he liked. Nobody managed to brake it.

It wouldnt be the initial impact that I'd worry about, its the microfracture that impact caused opening over the next 100,000 cycles. Either way, I agree that carbon spokes are overall a superior application, especially for race wheels because they can be aerodynamically shaped, unlike these.

They said they took a mallet to them and they fared way better than a regular spoke, which just bent.