Originally Posted by
cyccommute
In my experience people seldom ask about spokes. They think about the rim and the hub and spokes are almost always an afterthought. Rims really should be the after thought.
I disagree. People either want "strong" or they want "light" or they want "carbon" or they want "aero" or some other existential quality based on whatever random thing they were told they are supposed to want by some well crafted marketing jargon...As a car salesman you have no idea how many people came in wanting a "sporty" car and when asked what they mean, they had no answer.
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Huh? I don't follow. No one has suggested that. It seems rather pointless to....
Exactly! Your post was lamenting the focus people place on the number of spokes. And it would seem that in your world according to you that the number of spokes, the quality of rim, the merits of the hub are irrelevant. The only relavent metric in terms of a wheels suitability for service is the strength of an individual spoke, evenness of spoke tension and the roundness of the final product. I.e: the worksmanship of the builder.
My response was that people talk in terms of spoke count as a starting reference point and a proxy for the expected duty. I then cited a an example of how referring to a wheel build by other metrics such as the hub or rim quickly becomes loony when spoke count is not the defined reference point.
No one says: "Man, do I need a stronger hub..." or "Sure wish I had a rim with more holes..." You know why? Because that's a stupid place to start a wheel discussion if a consistant, round & symmetrical wheel is the assumed normal end result.
Don't like it? Don't lament convention of spoke count being a proxy for wheel strength or suitability for a particular service.
Quit while you're ahead.
To the OP: I knew a guy who had Deep V's on his freestyle-bash-the-skatepark-bike. He hammered 'em good. They held up well. For the money, that'd be a tough deal to beat.