28h vs 32h wheels

Hmm. Depends.

You won’t notice it, unless you bend it. Even then you’ll ask “does a 28h wheel bend quicker than a 32 hole”

Maybe a very tiny bit? Maybe.

I've managed never to kill a 32h wheel, I've killed two 28H rears. (A Mavic and a Roval carbon) on two separate bikes. I weigh 75kg and have re-defined "mincing" as a mountain bike skill.

I’m over 18st and have both 24 and 28h off-road wheels. I’ve not bent them. Yet.

Anecdotal rather than empirical...

Went from 27.5" 32 hole to 29" 28 hole (both DT Swiss EX511) since I bought a full build and it came with 28. Was a bit worried having larger wheels with less spokes.

Hammered the shit out of it all year, uplift, rocks, some brutal crashes, badly cased jumps and direct line choice. Still straight as the day I got it.

I don't know if that proves anything though but after initial concern I haven't noticed.

We’re not helping much, are we?

No right or wrong answer to that question. You can make perfectly strong 28h wheels suitable for anything you want to throw at them pretty much - see DT Swiss EX1501s. You could also make them weak using too thin spokes/weedy rim and wish you had those extra 4 spokes.

In essence though there's no reason to shy away from 28h unless you are really hard on your wheels or want to build up something odd.

I'm going to go with depends on the build, a well built 28 hole wheel will likely be better than a poorly built 32 hole wheel. All things being equal rims/spokes/hubs i suspect you'd only really notice it if you were adding luggage to the bike or were at the top end of the recommended rider weight.

28H, 'normal' spokes on my Scandal. 29er Shimano wheels, and I've snapped at least five rear spokes in the past three years, and although I kick the shit out of it, I don't really do gnarr, if that makes sense?
28H straight pull spokes on my Piglet. 27½ Fulcrum wheels, and it does get gnarred. Only had it built a year now, but still straight and true and not a single spoke breakage.
I'm 6'3" and probably on or near the upper weight limit for both sets. And I have never had a spoke snap with 32H wheels.

Not sure that's helped either.

Sheldon Brown said that if your front and rear wheels have the same number of spokes, one of them is wrong. What he means by that, of course, is that the rear has more load than the front, and therefore may benefit from more spokes to make it stronger. In my experience, though, this has only really applied to my touring and commuter bikes, although I'm not sure if that's because of the extra weight or because of the extra miles- either way, until I started building my rear wheels with more spokes than my front, the rear rim would always crack long the eyelets loooong before the front. Haven't had this problem on my mountain bikes or road bikes.

I think the main advantage is that 32h is less likely to go out of shape when you pop a spoke, or two.

How much stronger is a 32h over a 28h?

Four...

If the rim is the same and the build quality the same then the higher the spoke count the stronger the wheel. the real question is "do you need that extra strength?"

Personally I use 32 hole rims on my bike and deliberately so. I don't care about the extra few grammes. I want bombproof wheels. Tandem of course is higher again. 36 rear and 48 front. the front wheel has been utterly battered for a decade ( you can't lift the front wheel much) and is still perfectly true ( I couldn't get a higher count rear)

I've been really impressed with my mavic xa elites and these are 24h! trail rims, but I use them for enduro races and anything short of uplifted dh tracks, I notice the extra compliance & comfort but I've yet to damage them (well apart from snapped an axel), I'm chunky of build and tend to crash through stuff.
Didn't even go out of true when I snapped a spoke

You can make perfectly strong 28h wheels suitable for anything you want to throw at them pretty much – see DT Swiss EX1501s

Basically this, you can make brutally strong 28h wheels and flimsy 32h ones. There's also ride feel to consider, a 28h build may have a little bit more give and a nicer feel that a 32h one.

Richie Rude and Jack Moir both win EWS's on 28h wheels and I suspect that nobody on here is as hard on wheels as they are.

Richie Rude and Jack Moir both win EWS’s on 28h wheels and I suspect that nobody on here is as hard on wheels as they are.

How do people even know how many spokes these people are running? Did you just check, or did you honestly have prior knowledge?

But yes. Have you seen how hard modern rims are? Alloy rims have improved massively over the last few years. I wouldn't hesitate to run fewer spokes with a DT Swiss rim and a good build.

On a side note, I watched this this morning

Hatter - but how often do they retrue / rebuild them?

Colin Chapman of lotus cars fame considered the best racing car to be the one that fell to bits totally worn out 6" over the winning line as it had no redundant strength and therefore weight

Richie Rude and Jack Moir both win EWS’s on 28h wheels

Is meaningless really. They need their wheels to last a day sometimes not even as long as that.  Also my mate Tyler would like to speak with you about how to get a wheel through an EWS round 

I think a lot of pre built 28h wheels will be weaker than 32h wheels as 28h are generally seen as a lightweight option that will also mean a lighter (weaker) rim. As others have said, all being equal a 28h wheel won't be much weaker than a 32h but also not much lighter. Depends what you're looking for in a wheel I guess.

Biggest difference I've found is that 28h pick up more loose debris instead of bouncing off!

Figures its because the gaps are bigger between spokes...

IMO 32h used to be a really good idea, back when rims were a bit crap. But with modern, good rims, I don't think it's that valuable. Another way to look at it is that the difference is, what, 25-30g? I'd rather put that weight in the rim or tyre than in 4 spokes.

That said, most of mine are still 32h, because I have a bunch of nice 32h hubs and they refuse to die (DT240S baby, my 2 main sets are old enough to have kids). But if I'd been building from scratch with my last set I'd have gone 24h I reckon, or 24/28

How do people even know how many spokes these people are running? Did you just check, or did you honestly have prior knowledge?

They both run DT complete Enduro wheels with straight pull hubs, all of which are 28h and pretty much always have been.

I think the main advantage is that 32h is less likely to go out of shape when you pop a spoke, or two.

This was my reasoning when I picked 32 over 28. I know it doesn't quite work this way, but if I snap a spoke then on a big day out or on holiday, I wouldn't have to take it a easy for the remainder of the day.

Meh, with one spoke out carry on regardless- I remember first time I went to fort william, I broke a rear spoke (on a pretty light 28 hole wheel) loading the bike onto the hooks on the train! No straightpulls to be had in town so I just carried on, it went a wee bit out of true but was fine.

I’ve now moved almost totally to carbon rims and find that 28h gives a better ride quality than 32. 32h makes a VERY stiff wheel even with lightweight spokes. 28h seems to alleviate some of the harshness.

Whether you want that or not is up to you.

Aye Northwind but unless you have been at the pies since I last met you you weigh about what one of my legs does 🙂

All bikes are on 29" wheels in the garage
-Two of the bikes are 29" wheels with DT Swiss Rims and Hope hubs, 32 hole, 290/292
-One is on 28 hole

Dont have any issues with strength or durability, just the pain in the ass of the different length spokes!

Why go with a weaker wheel for saving the weight of 4 spokes?

My bikes are all 36 spoke. Though admittedly at North of 16 stone I put more weight through them.

tjagain
Full Member

Aye Northwind but unless you have been at the pies since I last met you you weigh about what one of my legs does 🙂

OK so yes so I'm so skinny that on a bright day you can see the sun right through my torso, but, to balance it out I do ride pretty hard- that wheel ended up doing fort william's dh, a ton of runs on the nevis red etc etc on a hardtail, with the missing spoke. And probably quite clumsily because I was less good then 🙂