robow

Though theoretically ideal, over the decades I have seen very few bike tourists, even those that are well seasoned, who adhere to this ratio. Why ? Because most rear panniers are significantly larger than front panniers and most of us like to throw all sorts of crap on top of the rear rack platform. Many don't have a front fork that can accept a front rack and even fewer have one with a platform on top in order to carry stuff. Is this ideal ? Heck no ! but don't let that get in the way of playing the game.

Btw, I've only built on one set of Rhino's for a heavy friend of mine and though they were more work to get trued initially, they held up well for him and that was with standard 14g spokes, as he didn't want to spend the money on butted spokes.