Front wheel lacing pattern

[thousandwords]

Hi everybody,

 

Very quick question here, and I apologize in advance for my ignorance as I have a feeling this is rather basic knowledge- what is the most common lacing pattern for trials front wheel: radial, single cross, two-cross or three cross?

Really looking for the quick answer, at this point not looking for rationale behind it etc, so even a cryptic reply such as "x2" or "x3" or "rad" would be immensely helpful and appreciated!

Thank you!

[Swoofty]

Most of my bikes are 3x front. My pure trials stock bike is 2x front w HS33s up front. I have one street trials bike that is 3x disc side and radial non disc.

[Target]

You can't go wrong with 3x. If this is a rim brake front wheel, you can also consider 2x, 1x or radial.

[Maintenance Justice]

3 cross for 32h / 2 cross for 28h 

[Alex Dark]

I used to use radial for rim brake , but now 2x. 3x if disc application. 

[Mark W]

For most trials hubs, I'd avoid going radial up front. Because they're built for lightness, quite often you'll find the hub shell is relatively thin. When you lace it radially on the lighter hubs you effectively stretch the bearing seats out through the spoke tension and mean the bearings get loose in the shell. With 2 or 3x, the force isn't pulling the hub shell straight out so you don't have that problem. It's worth taking the fractional extra weight of the longer spokes for the bearing security.

[Danny00135]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:22 PM, Mark W said:

For most trials hubs, I'd avoid going radial up front. Because they're built for lightness, quite often you'll find the hub shell is relatively thin. When you lace it radially on the lighter hubs you effectively stretch the bearing seats out through the spoke tension and mean the bearings get loose in the shell. With 2 or 3x, the force isn't pulling the hub shell straight out so you don't have that problem. It's worth taking the fractional extra weight of the longer spokes for the bearing security.

Exactly what I was about to post, keep radial on the fixies.

I had this happen, even tried shimming it, which helped for half a ride, but soon started knocking about again

Do it right the first time,

3x or 2x 

[Jere_h]

I just did a radial build on my Crewkerz Waw 32h hub. The hub design looks a bit beefier though compared to many lightweight trials hubs out there. Also it should be made of 7075 aluminum, will see.

I used to have a stock Echo front wheel and it started eating the disc side spokes at some point. I reckon that was partly due to the other side being radial and the disc side 3x. The radial side is twisting easily, letting most of the rotational stress to the 3x side, at least this is how I would imagine it happening.
Laced the same hub 3x on both sides, and never had an issue again (the original was pre-built though, and the spokes that snapped probably weren't Sapim either).

[thousandwords]

Thanks to all of you guys for all this, it helped immensely- last night finished putting together my front wheel (two cross).

[Mark W]

16 hours ago, Danny00135 said:

I had this happen, even tried shimming it, which helped for half a ride, but soon started knocking about again

There are specific bearing retaining compounds you can buy for this kind of 'problem', but as you rightly point out the best solution is to not go down that route in the first place!

Things like Loctite Stud & Bearing Fit and other generic retaining compounds are a good shout though if any of you happen to wind up with a radially laced wheel that has issues.

[Swoofty]

Or you could use a hub designed to be 3x and radial ;-) Oh yeah!

[Mark W]

That is one way of doing it, haha.

Out of interest, have you tried a 3x/3x or 3x/2x pattern up front? Only reason I ask is I found that on a 24" especially it felt so much stiffer. I had a 3x/radial front wheel on my Echo 24", and the difference in feel when I was carving into spins (more so things like bunnyhop 180s and 360s) and things like that was night and day when I went to 3x/3x. 

That said, I am super fussy as far as feel/setup goes...

[Swoofty]

I have two 24" street bikes at the moment. The other one is 3x/3x and I honestly can't tell the difference. I can do rolling 180s, but not 360s and I do a lot of front end moves, but no gaps to front. It is very possible that I'm not sensitive enough to notice a difference. The difference may be down to the 3x/radial hub being designed to be that way as opposed to a regular hub built radial non disc side. Extralite make some pretty incredible hubs. The 3x/3x wheel is also Extralite, but the J bend version hub and I've never built it radial. When's your birthday? I'll send you an Extralite hub ;-)