Every time I see bicycle spokes, I always wonder if they’re really the best design they could be. They seem flimsy and antiquated. Couldn’t this design be updated to be less likely to break?
I don’t know, they’re light, strong, absorb impact since they are mounted tangentially rather then radially and don’t add alot of drag. Seems good to me. However, I have seen motorcycles without spokes. The bike holds onto the wheel at the rim, but I’m not finding any pictures at the moment.
You can get larger diameter spokes for rough service. If money is no object, there are plastic composite wheels, which are reputed to be much stronger than metal.
Give that the current spoke design has been more or less unchanged since fairly early in the history of the bicycle, I rather suspect at this point that the design already is optimal. You want something that’s as light as possible, but also strong. Spokes give you both those things. If a better design were possible, someone most likely would have devised it by now.
That would be the Sbarro.
Spoked wheels are already pretty much the lightest type of wheel construction. Composite wheels are used more for aerodynamics than to save weight. If you’re having problems breaking spokes, then you could go up to a heavier gauge spoke or try different lacing patterns and/or spoke counts.
Wrong. Have you ever seen carbon wheels with only three “spokes”? Or, there different designs with a few, thicker spokes made of composite materials, too. Flip thru a Colorado Cyclist catalogue, and you’ll see some inovative designs.
I’m sure. Innovative designs are fine, as far as they go, but they’re not always practical. Based on what I see in my day-to-day travels, I’d estimate that 99.9% of bikes out there still employ the classic spoke design, or some minor variant thereof. Not a lot of three-spoke carbon wheels or fancy-schmancy composite materials. Same with the Sbarro 'cycles. I’m not seeing a whole hell of a lot of those tooling around the streets, either. Innovative doesn’t necessarily mean better.
And “innovative” does not necessarily equal “better”. They have their place, but spokes are still tough to beat.
Speaking as a former nationally-ranked triathlete, on triathlon and TT bikes, which have much more freedom when it comes to design than road racers, the trend nowadays is to deep-dish, reduced spoke count wheels, such as these wheels from Rolf . The problems with the carbon tri-spoke wheels (such as this set from HED) are twofold. First, a crosswind can push you around quite a bit. Spokes are far less susceptible to this. Second, they are very stiff and the ride is quite harsh. This can be fatiguing on a long ride. They do have low aerodynamic drag, but the tradeoff is more weight. Is this a good tradeoff? Depends. On a hilly course, maybe not.
Hubless, ah, had the wrong search term
And I never would have thought of Sbarro.
I remember reading about them maybe 10 or 15 years ago in, IIRC, Popular Science. I’d forgotten the name “Sbarro” until today (thanks, Mr. Blue Sky). I still think it’s a pretty neat idea, even if it’s impractical.
OT nitpick, but this statement smacks of logical fallacy. Appeal to tradition perhaps.
I’d agree with you if I’d failed to qualify it with “most likely”. 
Nor does it mean inexpensive, which is one reason you don’t see these things everyday.
Yeah, well. I’m still waiting for those hover bikes they promised us we’d all have in the 21st century. And the flying cars. I feel like we’ve been cheated out of all the coolest technology.
I may be biased here (HED sponsorship), but although you’ve certainly answered the OP, I have to say that I disagree with some of what you said about the Hed Trispoke. Aerodynamically, it’s neck and neck with a Zipp 808 set in a dead headwind, but in real life most winds come from an angle and the tri-spokes tend to excel there. Furthermore, I’ve ridden both tri-spokes and 404’s and found the 404’s harder to control in the wind. The 404 is like a sheet of paper in cross-winds but the tri-spoke is more wing-like and doesn’t get affected by a side wind the way its cross area might suggest. Hed’s website date comparing forces in idential crosswinds where the tri-spokes come out ahead in sideways forces, and even better than discs in drag in crosswinds.
Anyway, back to the OP, given that all of the wheels discussed here cost more than 97% of the complete bicycles in the world or even US market, there’s a lot to be said for traditional construction. Zipps are, “traditional” construction except for a carbon rim, but they are still some blazingly fast wheels as light as under three pounds for a complete wheelset. Steel-spoke construction is easy to build, relatively cheap, very durable, and already pretty optimal in a number of dimensions.
Not every bike wheel you see is laced the same
There are lots of different way to lace a wheel. What you see on a Walmart bike is not the same lacing as my road bike.
Well, Tour de France riders, like multiple winner Lance Armstrong, seem to use wheels and spokes that look quite similar to standard ones. See http://photos23.flickr.com/24623188_c83e394485.jpg and http://eur.news1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/ng/sp/p3/20060118/10/2298865659.jpg
and http://www.chainreactionbicycles.com/images/france03P7212932racevirenque590.JPG
I’d expect that if there was a better design available, they would be the ones to use it. Especially as the ‘expense’ issue wouldn’t matter much to them.
The spokes are possibly a bit thicker than on your casual biker’s wheel, though it’s hard to tell from these photos.
Here’s a webpage that talks about some special 4-spoked wheels (http://www.velonews.com/view_full.php?image=/images/tech/6608.8518.f.jpg) used in the 2004 Tour de France. Said to be built by Andreas Walser, a former architect, and a one-man operation in Switzerland. http://www.velonews.com/tour2004/tech/articles/6608.0.html
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- There are a number of high-performance items available that aren’t permitted in formal UCF cycling competition, just as a matter of the rules. Recumbent bicycles, for one. And up until a few years ago, aerospoke wheels were not allowed at all; now in some races they are allowed in time trials.
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- Spoke wheels are still around because they are a good combination of stiffness and weight. The carbon-fiber wheels have stiffness and weight problems. The two main companies are HED (3-spoke wheels) and Aerospoke (5-spoke wheels).
- Triathlons don’t allow recumbents but they do allow more variations in gear than what regular cycling does. It is common to see triathlon bicycles with aero wheels.
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