I recently noticed while wondering into the road bike section of my LBS that on alot of bikes the drive side uses a radial spoke patern, and the non drive side used a 2X pattern.

Why is that? I would think the drive side should have the 2X lacing for the torque.

Anyone care to explain the logic behind this?

I've also only heard of that in the opposite way - radial for non-drive weight savings, 2/3 cross on drive-side for rigidity.

Builder error or were there many (or factory-built) wheels that were like this?

-m

As Matt said, non-drive side is usually radial while drive side is built with cross lacing (half-radial).

Sheldon Brown explains some of the reasons for building half-radial wheels here, as well as mentioning "wrong way half-radial" wheels:

(Scroll to bottom of page)
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

nope. Its actualy not possible that it was builder error. Because

1, the hub is so that the drive side HAS to be radial, and the non-drive side HAS to be 2 cross.

2, the wheel came stock on a mid level bike. So it was machine built. Not that it matters though cuz like i said above, the hub is such that well, im repeating myself now. You get the idea.

Ah!!!!

here is a picture i just pulled straight off the shimano website. Look at the pair of wheels on the left. Not the close up.

More:

The WH-7801 Dura-ace wheelset:

actualy, i just thought, the reason they do that might be because they want to push the spokes out as far as possible for side-to-side rigidity, and maybe they found that having the radial spokes on the inside really isnt a huge deal.

Can anyone confirm?

EDIT:
Fuck, i feel like such a noob, thanks for the link sanrensho. I missed it the first time around

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