Snowflake Spoking

[losidan]

Hello,

My old race bike used to have snowflake spoking on my front wheel..I always thought it looked really cool....

Anyway, I was thinking about having it on front and rear of my current bike...Is snow flake still done in shops and is it any stronger than the normal cross spoking.....

Or what about radial front and snowflake rear? My bike only runs on the roads and canal towpath so it isnt going to be getting a beating...Apart from me and my spare tyres throwing a leg over every day :roll:

 

[Pfennig]

I'm sure I've seen a bike on here recently with both wheels snowflaked.

Does anyonw know if its much more complicated than normal to build a snowflaked wheel? Andbody got a link that shows the way to do it??

 

[Pace]

Might have been my Pace RC200 you saw - running snowflaked front and rear - seems fine so far

 

[Neil G]

Looked cool, proven to be not as strong as a normal 3/4 cross wheel

 

[utahdog2003]

Not any more difficult than a normal wheel, really. If you want to get really tricky you can tie the crosses at the twists with copper wire and then solder them. Makes for a stiff wheel, let me tell you, and you can drive over it with the car!

Heavy though. Snowflake is blingy, but simple 3 cross is best, I think. But if you have multiple retro bikes...why not a snowflake?

 

[Pfennig]

and spoke lengths? i assume they need to be slightly longer than a normal build to accomodate the 'twist'??

 

[fatfixie]

Spokes need to be 4/5mm longer

looks good, less strong, can creak like a bugger after a while

go for crows foot, or 3 leading, 3 trailing spoking- much cooler

Andy

 

[utahdog2003]

Spokes need to be 4/5mm longer

looks good, less strong, can creak like a bugger after a while

go for crows foot, or 3 leading, 3 trailing spoking- much cooler

Andy

Check that 4-5mm...I'll have to check my notes, but I think a three cross modified into snowflake requires 10mm additional spoke length. Are you twisting a two cross with your 4-5mm additional? That would make sense.

 

[cannondale king]

DONT i hate doing them to the point i refuse know to do it you need 10mm extra for the spokes you twist in the 3 cross snowflake pattern and 6mm for 2cross snowflake but they are hell to true if the go out and they do :x :x :x :x :x "it can dive you inssssssaaaaaane lets do the time warp again" is what you will mumble while your building them just go do a hybride crowsfoot much easier and looks better

 

[utahdog2003]

6mm sounds right for a two cross.

I'd agree that for a rider use normal 3 cross, but if your schtik is to build some pseudo Clark Kent type period buildup, then snowflake it up, baby!