Originally Posted by
non-fixie
36/40 was a typical touring combo, BITD. A popular touring rim was the Weinmann concave rim. Not easy to clean, but very strong. NOS examples do pop up from time to time, but I wouldn't mind a used set in good condition.
I have two sets of 36/40 touring wheels. Both with Maxi-car hubs. One is laced to Mavic Module 4 rims, the other to a set of Super Champion Model 58's. Lovely, but harder to find.
Why was the 36/40 combo good for touring? Wouldn't 36/36 be just as good, or perhaps better?
One argument against 32/40 is better, is that Raleigh was a megavolume manufacturer, and over the 20th century an amazingly large set of manufacturers were trained and coached by Henry Ford in the attitudes, values, and techniques for success in mass production. So if for a given bike model one an minimize component diversity, perhaps by reducing the number of spoke sizes which are to be set out on the assembly line. It may have saved maybe a nickel for each unit, but at a production level of 1 M, that's a savings of 5 million cents, or $500,000. a year. That's real money.
So for Raleigh to go ahead and commonize components across three bikes badged with liveries from Raleigh, Rudge, and Humber, already saved a lot of money, and the use of common spokes added to the gravy as I described.