In one of my recent builds, I had to resort to an unconventional solution for not so ordinary wheel build in the first place. As it turns out, you can fairly easy bypass the two-to-one spoke ratio hub using a standard hub design instead.

It all started with a conversation with one of my customers, experiencing troubles with the rear hub, having freehub spinning in both directions. Though at first, I suspected that the freehub itself was damaged and that repair was possible, after a thorough clean, it unfortunately turned out I was wrong and that the outer hub shell itself was damaged beyond repair. Face it, no chance of repairing this.

To make things even more challenging, it was a two-to-one spoke ratio wheel from a renowned manufacturer, built with 16 spokes on the drive side and 8 spokes on the wheel’s non-drive side respectively. Spoke count of 24 in total then. Deep profile carbon rim was also drilled at an angle, so there was no changing lacing pattern there, also. Good enough.

In fruitless search for compatible alternative hub choices and at the same time thinking about “fast-realisation” as a priority, I was running out of clever ideas what to do until I had a small revelation. Basically, it was a wheel build simplification.

Understanding the logics behind this unconventional lacing pattern, in its basis, you can actually hack such two-to-one spoke pattern using a standard hub with equal amount of spoke holes on both flanges. The only condition is that an alternative hub has in total double the spoke count on the drive side of an original two-to-one hub. For our case, it was 2 x 16 spokes, meaning I had to find a 32H centerlock disc brake road hub. As one would suspect, my options of tackling the problem quicker just got lot better.

Oh, another consideration, should we go with a native straight pull or more conventional J-bend hub design? Although the prior hub was straight pull, we quickly agreed to go with a more budget friendly classic hub design from Miche. Probably even better looking at hub serviceability options in the long run.

But such a solution would come with a small, mainly aesthetic drawback. So, the real fallback from such a solution regarding chosen hub design was every other spoke hole in the non-drive side hub flange being unused. Was the non-drive flange weakened because of leaving empty every other spoke hole? Not really, but then again, avoid close-to-radial pattern to be sure.

Down to calculations

Ok, first part of this simple hack was already elaborated. Use an ordinary J-bend or straight pull hub design with double the spoke count on the drive side of the original hub. For 24 holes two-to-one hubs, just look for 32H standard hubs and for 21 holes two-to-one hubs any 28H standard hub would do, respectively.

Did you notice translations of a free spoke calculator, Spokecalc? Now also in French, Spanish, Dutch...

The second part of the hack is the spoke calculation and this is where you cannot bypass the logics of the two-to-one lacing pattern. If in a standard wheel, spokes follow the pattern of alternating from drive to non-drive side, the two-to-one patent introduces a pattern of doubling the spokes in the critical zones.

So, in our case a non-drive side spoke is followed by a leading and then trailing drive side spoke as shown in the illustration below.

Luckily, I have visually as well as mathematically clarified the process of getting a fracture cross number of such lacing pattern on the drive side in one of my previous articles, 2:1 Two-to-one lacing pattern - Calculating spoke length for a 2:1 spoke lacing pattern. Reading the article, you will see that the calculation would therefore be a two step process.

Looking to the non-drive side, the calculation is very straight forward. Since we only have eight non-drive spokes with a 1 cross lacing, start a spoke calculation using a spoke count of 16 in total (for both sides), since left side spokes are equally distributed (spaced apart) alongside the rim bed. This is the first part of our calculation, where we only use the spoke length of the non-drive side of the wheel, ignoring the right side calculation.

Such spoke calculations are two step process. If we overlooked the right side calculation result before, we now ignore the left side result completely.

The drive side is where it gets tricky. For all the spicy details, again, please read the article above, but we cannot avoid dealing with a fracture cross number. The drive side spokes will be laced with a 2-cross pattern, but since the two-to-one rim design, they are actually positioned a little more apart, compared to a normal rim. Instead of 22.5 degrees between two drive side spokes, we are dealing with a full, 30 degrees. In terms of spoke calculator, this means a 0.16 cross increase or 2.16 cross final lacing pattern. For our case, the total right side spoke length was around 2 mm longer then it would be in usual 2 cross lacing pattern.

Looking at finished wheel project, the compromise of our lacing pattern is that having only 8 spokes on the non-drive side leaves every other spoke hole in the flange empty. Other than that, as long as the customer agrees to such a solution, the wheel build is perfectly functional. And moreover, such solutions take less time.

Final thoughts

While not being the perfect solution, the compromise, as it turns out, actually can be made when handling a two-to-one spoke ratio wheel when a hub accidentally fails. Replacing a two-to-one more exotic hub design with an alternative standard hub may at first not even come to mind, but can save a wheel builder and a client when a fast, budget friendly repair is needed. Enjoy wheelbuilding!

About author

Aljaž Trenta

Author and founder
"As a cycling enthusiast, bike mechanic and self-taught web designer, combining several of my passions and skills to build SpokeCalc was a great fun for me."