Originally Posted by
cyccommute
I’ll have to disagree. Bikes are directional with a defined front/rear and right/left. That makes right and left unambiguous. By convention, we put the drive side on the right on all bikes.
As for any variants away from using shorter spokes on the right side of the wheel, they are rare enough as to be nonexistent.
Yes, bikes are directional and most would assume that right and left are defined by a viewer facing in the direction that bikes travel; however this is still an assumption and thus injects ambiguity. Using DS and NDS in the context of the posed question makes no assumptions and therefore is clearly unambiguous. Also, there are more left side drive bikes than you may imagine, so DS and NDS eliminate any confusion.
