On Friday, July 5, 2019 at 12:12:03 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/5/2019 1:22 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
Someone here commented on my posting that the latest cheap Chinese deep rim carbon fiber tubeless wheels have somewhat slack spokes and that causes the wheels to be very sensitive to side gusts of wind.

I have tested the tight spoke clincher 50 mm rims against the slack spoke 55 mm rims and the difference in steering is dramatic. The looser spokes in the wheels makes the wheels so unpredictable in side winds that I have to slow up a great deal.

In calm or constant winds the slack spoke wheels handle just the same as the clinchers with tight spokes. Moreover, you cannot feel more effect from the side gusts on the tight spoked clincher rim than you can on a normal pair of aluminum Campy wheels.

So anyone that doesn't believe being able to manually push a wheel over until it touches the brake pads on either side, with the looser spokes, doesn't effect steering ought to try it before commenting on it.

Here's a super competent and rather famous bicycling engineer said on
this point:

"1. Does stiffness vary with spoke tension? Some believe that a wheel
built with tighter spokes is stiffer. It is not. Wheel stiffness does
not vary significantly with spoke tension unless a spoke becomes totally
slack."

He actually did tests. You know, measurements? Using repeatable machine
shop equipment like dial indicators and the like?

That's at https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/wheel_index.html

This is very easy to understand based on the fundamental physics -
specifically, the applied engineering branch of physics known as
Strength of Materials or Theory of Elasticity.

--
- Frank Krygowski

It never surprises me when you refer to someone else for knowledge you do not have yourself. If this is the case, why not have any sort of spoke installed and not have the stiffest steel possible? Duhhhhhh.