Have you ever thought about how your hubs and spokes affect the quality of your bike ride? If you haven't, it may be worth considering. Wheel spokes are an important part of the wheel; you can't ignore their role.
We have constructed a guide about why we have chosen specific hubs and spoke counts for the many facets of cycling. You will know：
- The purpose of different Spoke Counts design
- What kind of spokes are used for IcanCycling
Do not fear, though we have not loaded the article with jargon. We will tell you everything in plain English with no marketing spin. What we say about our carbon fibre wheels can be taken and used to compare against other brands' wheels.
We have broken this article down into riding styles, making it easy to find the section that relates to your daily riding, but the article reads best as a whole.
Road Bikes With Rim Brakes
The whole world may have gone disc brake wild, but many of us still prefer good rim brakes. Our rim brake wheels are designed to help work with rim brakes.
If you are a road cyclist with rim brakes, your number one aim will likely be speed. Going fast is, after all, what road biking is all about. Building an incredibly light set of wheels is one of the best ways to help you go fast.
One of the easiest ways to reduce weight on wheels is to lower the spoke count. When you lower the spoke count, you will remove the material with a mass. The more you remove these spokes, the lighter your wheels will be.
However, an inherent problem needs addressing: you still require the wheels to bear the load and transmit your energy. Therefore, it is critical to strike a balance between lightness and durability. To achieve this balance, you must ensure that the rims, hubs, and spokes are designed to work cohesively."
That is why our road bike wheels feature 20 spokes on the front and 24 on the rear. We use more spokes on the rear as the wheel has to cope with the torque you provide. We don't want the rear wheel flexing when you stamp on your pedals.
Our rims can be paired with a choice of hubs in the 20/24 pattern. You can select from our standard hub, the R13, a Novatec hub 511/522SB with straight pull, or our R51 hub that is compatible with 2:1 spokes. We will soon publish an article on 2:1 spokes, so be sure to check back for that.
We took our R13 hub and created a lighter, stiff hub flange that allowed us to drop to 18 spokes on the front wheel. We still use 24 spokes on the rear wheel as we want your power to transfer to the road.
Road Bike With Disc Brakes
Even if your road bike has disc brakes, it's still important to have lightweight wheels. This is because disc brakes exert an additional force on your wheels. Since disc brakes are very powerful, your wheelset must be super stiff to avoid twisting under braking pressure.
So it would help if you still had a superlight wheelset, but it has to be built stiffer. We use a 24/24 spoking pattern on our disc brake wheels. You need the 24 spokes on the rear, the same as your standard road bike, for putting the power down.
It's less critical to increase the spoke count from 24 on the back, as you'll only be using your back brake to balance your front brake. However, your front wheel requires an increased spoke count, as it generates most of your braking power. You don't want a front wheel that can flex under load.
To keep you safe while still being light was the guiding principle for our D01 hubset. We have fitted this hubset to all our road disc brake wheels except for our DT Swiss equipped models, either their 240S hubs or 350S hubs. The DT Swiss equipped models also use a 24/24 pattern to keep you light and safe.
Cyclocross, Gravel, and All-road bikes
So, we took all the knowledge of building safe, light, and strong wheels for riding across the smooth tarmac and beefed them up a little. You need still light wheels, particularly if you are racing, but you also need them to deal with terrible surfaces and highly rutted race courses.
To help stay lightweight but deal with all the forces coming from offroad conditions and heavier braking, our engineers decided that 28 spokes front and rear were the way to go. You do not want to be in the middle of a 200-mile gravel race and have your wheels fail, so we have worked hard to make our wheels as reliable as possible.
Our standard gravel/cross wheels use Novatec D711/712SB hubs. These hubs use a standard J-bend spoke; we will have more on that in our spoke article, unlike the straight-pull spokes on our DT Swiss hubbed gravel/cross wheels. The DT Swiss hubs also feature a 28/28 spoking pattern, regardless of whether you pick a 240S hubset or a 350S hubset.
Mountain Bike Wheels
As you can see, the spoke count has increased as the terrain has gotten harder to ride. Extra spokes give you extra strength and can also help your wheel pop back into shape if you hit an unexpected rock, and there will be a lot of unforeseen rocks when riding mountain bikes.
As well as being strong, you do not want to overdo weight. You need to find a nice balancing point again. That is why all our mountain bike wheels use 32 spokes in the front and rear. It is not overkill, and it still makes your bike a pleasure to ride.
You get 32 spokes whether you buy a wheelset with the Powerway M81 hubs, Novatec D711/712SB, or DT Swiss hubs, again in your choice of 240S or 350S. These choices mean we can offer carbon fibre mountain bike wheels to suit everyone's budget. After all, you deserve high-quality carbon fibre wheels.
The following is a reference table about spokes length
| Wheels | Stock Code | Spokes | ||
| Location | Length | Qty | ||
| 38C/T | 38C/T-R13 | Front | 270 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 272 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 268 | 12 | ||
| 40C/T | 40C/T-R13 | Front | 268 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 270 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 266 | 12 | ||
| 45C/T | 45C/T-R13 | Front | 262 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 264 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 260 | 12 | ||
| 50C/T | 50C/T-R13 | Front | 258 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 260 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 256 | 12 | ||
| 55C/T | 55C/T-R13 | Front | 252 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 254 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 250 | 12 | ||
| 86C/T | 86C/T-R13 | Front | 222 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 224 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 219 | 12 | ||
| 88C/T | 88C/T-R13 | Front | 220 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 220 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 218 | 12 | ||
| 38C/T | 38C/T-NOV | Front | 274 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 284 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 280 | 12 | ||
| 40C/T | 40C/T-NOV | Front | 270 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 282 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 278 | 12 | ||
| 50C/T | 50C/T-NOV | Front | 262 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 272 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 268 | 12 | ||
| 55C/T | 55C/T-NOV | Front | 256 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 266 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 262 | 12 | ||
| 86C/T | 86C/T-NOV | Front | 226 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 236 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 232 | 12 | ||
| 88C/T | 88C/T-NOV | Front | 228 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 222 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 222 | 12 | ||
| 38C/T | 38C/T-DT | Front | 272 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 284 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 280 | 12 | ||
| 40C/T | 40C/T-DT | Front | 270 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 280 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 278 | 12 | ||
| 50C/T | 50C/T-DT | Front | 260 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 270 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 268 | 12 | ||
| 55C/T | 55C/T-DT | Front | 254 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 265 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 263 | 12 | ||
| 86C/T | 86C/T-DT | Front | 226 | 20 |
| Rear Drive Side | 234 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 232 | 12 | ||
| 40C/T | 40C/T-R01 | Front | 268 | 18 |
| Rear Drive Side | 256 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 282 | 12 | ||
| 50C/T | 50C/T-R01 | Front | 260 | 18 |
| Rear Drive Side | 248 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 272 | 12 | ||
| 55C/T | 55C/T-R01 | Front | 255 | 18 |
| Rear Drive Side | 243 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 268 | 12 | ||
| 86C/T | 86C/T-R01 | Front | 232 | 18 |
| Rear Drive Side | 212 | 12 | ||
| Rear Non Drive Side | 238 | 12 | ||