Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty. The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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On 7/29/2025 10:08 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty. The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Yes, it's possible but probably a game not worth the candle.

Your spoke lengths are all over the place which can be
frustrating. IMHO rims are not expensive enough for that
sort of suffering. YMMV

https://unicyclist.com/t/wheel-building-36h-hub-with-32h-rim/127356/2
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

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AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 7/29/2025 10:08 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty. The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Yes, it's possible but probably a game not worth the candle.

Your spoke lengths are all over the place which can be
frustrating. IMHO rims are not expensive enough for that
sort of suffering. YMMV

https://unicyclist.com/t/wheel-building-36h-hub-with-32h-rim/127356/2

Thank you! spoke length issues never crossed my mind 8-(
The phrase "You can combine 4x scare-crows + 2x a pairs of cross-1’s.
makes (4x 3) + (2x 2) = 16 (one side, and 2x 16 = 32)."
made me smile....

I'm not sure what it means exactly, but the idea of mixing
spoke crossings within a wheel also didn't cross my mind.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 7/29/2025 11:00 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 7/29/2025 10:08 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty. The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Yes, it's possible but probably a game not worth the candle.

Your spoke lengths are all over the place which can be
frustrating. IMHO rims are not expensive enough for that
sort of suffering. YMMV

https://unicyclist.com/t/wheel-building-36h-hub-with-32h-rim/127356/2

Thank you! spoke length issues never crossed my mind 8-(
The phrase "You can combine 4x scare-crows + 2x a pairs of cross-1’s.
makes (4x 3) + (2x 2) = 16 (one side, and 2x 16 = 32)."
made me smile....

I'm not sure what it means exactly, but the idea of mixing
spoke crossings within a wheel also didn't cross my mind.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

That's had it's fashion moment (not with mismatched
drillings) 50~60 years ago. Bird Brothers (England) built
dramatic-looking mixed-pattern wheels to some success and
were copied here in those days.

--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 7/29/2025 11:20 AM, AMuzi wrote:

On 7/29/2025 11:00 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 7/29/2025 10:08 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched
hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole
hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty.
The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong
enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim
seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub
and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels
don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Yes, it's possible but probably a game not worth the candle.

Your spoke lengths are all over the place which can be
frustrating. IMHO rims are not expensive enough for that
sort of suffering. YMMV

https://unicyclist.com/t/wheel-building-36h-hub-with-32h-
rim/127356/2

Thank you! spoke length issues never crossed my mind 8-(
The phrase "You can combine 4x scare-crows + 2x a pairs of
cross-1’s.
makes (4x 3) + (2x 2) = 16 (one side, and 2x 16 = 32)."
made me smile....

I'm not sure what it means exactly, but the idea of mixing
spoke crossings within a wheel also didn't cross my mind.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

That's had it's fashion moment (not with mismatched
drillings) 50~60 years ago.  Bird Brothers (England) built
dramatic-looking mixed-pattern wheels to some success and
were copied here in those days.

p.s. asymmetric front build by a wheelbuilder who was much
impressed by them while living in England:

https://www.yellowjersey.org/photosfromthepast/am19a.jpg https://www.yellowjersey.org/photosfromthepast/am19a.jpg

--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Tue Jul 29 10:25:09 2025 AMuzi wrote:

On 7/29/2025 10:08 AM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is it practical to lace hubs into rims with mismatched hole counts?

I could imagine that lacing a 32-hole rim onto a 36-hole hub would
work ok, simply leaving the four unused hub holes empty. The rim
would be (nearly) evenly supported and the hub strong enough.

Going the other way, a 32-hole hub with a 36-hole rim seems much
more fraught. The rim seems more fragile than the hub and the
unsupported spans appear more troublesome.

Still, folks do ride with broken spokes and the wheels don't
instantly collapse.

It's looks as if rim stiffness (and hence weight) is the
limiting factor. Less clear is how overbuilt hubs might be.
I'm thinking about commuter-grade, not racing components.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Yes, it's possible but probably a game not worth the candle.

Your spoke lengths are all over the place which can be
frustrating. IMHO rims are not expensive enough for that
sort of suffering. YMMV

https://unicyclist.com/t/wheel-building-36h-hub-with-32h-rim/127356/2

I agree completely. You can figure out which spokes to leave off at the four points of the compass but rims or hubs are far too chezp to take the chance of a wheel going out of whack in the middle of nowhere.

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