32, 36 roles rim standard

and_woox

I was searching about wich one of the rims are considered standard by most bike manufectures, meaning wich is a more popular type (more rims available, rubs), but only found info regarding wich is the stiffer.
Wich type do you belive is the popular and has more future regarding manufactures making more parts to it, the 32 or the 36 hole rim?
Thank you

nicklouse

there is no standard.
neither is most popular.

and_woox

But didn't 36 holes come before and 32 beeing more of a current kind?

supersonic

Not really. 32 is more common on midrange bikes, 36 on budget bikes, and 24 and 28 on top end bikes. So no real answer!

nicklouse

also bike use/design has bearing on the number of spokes.

some bikes have 32 on the front and 36 on the rear.

Splasher

I would say more bikes come as standard with 32 hole rims but I'm not sure what's driving your question. Are you just curious or do you want to do something with the information.

Bikedevil

To through a spanner in the works I have 36 on the front and 48 on the rear 8)

and_woox

Ok.
Thanks for the info that was what i was looking for.

nicklouse

some of my bikes have 32 front and 36 rear, one like Bikedevil's is 36/48 one is 32/32......


but what you may be wanting is this

How Many Spokes?
Up until the early 1980s, virtually all adult bikes had 72 spokes.
32 front/40 rear was the standard for British bikes, 36 front and rear for other countries. The exception was super-fancy special purpose racing wheels, which might have 32 spokes front and rear.

The Great Spoke Scam: In the early '80s a clever marketeer hit upon the idea of using only 32 spokes in wheels for production bikes. Because of the association of 32 spoke wheels with exotic high performance bikes, the manufacturers were able to cut corners and save money while presenting it as an "upgrade!" The resulting wheels were noticeably weaker than comparable 36 spoke wheels, but held up well enough for most customers.

Since then this practice has been carried to an extreme, with 28, 24, even 16 spoke wheels being offered, and presented as it they were somehow an "upgrade."

Actually, such wheels normally are not an upgrade in practice. When the spokes are farther apart on the rim, it is necessary to use a heavier rim to compensate, so there isn't usually even a weight benefit from these newer wheels!

This type of wheel requires unusually high spoke tension, since the load is carried by fewer spokes. If a spoke does break, the wheel generally becomes instantly unridable.

If you want highest performance, it is generally best to have more spokes in the rear wheel than the front. For instance, 28/36 is better than 32/32 People very rarely have trouble with front wheels:

Front wheels are symmetrically dished

Front wheels carry less weight

Front wheels don't have to deal with torsional loads (unless there's a hub brake)

If you have the same number of spokes front and rear, either the front wheel is heavier than it needs to be, or the rear wheel is weaker than it should be.

http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html