"What are the purported advantages ,if any, of high over low flange from a mechanical or physics standpoint? Spoke stress? Will the experts please weigh in!"
Art-ever curious-Link,San Antonio,TX,USA
I'm not an expert but have some information. What I was told was that small flange wheels were more "forgiving" since they had a longer spoke length, thus the spoke could flex more. A feature for road riding on bumpy roads. Conversely, it was still quite common to have large flange hubs on track bikes. The tied and soldered method supposedly added to stiffness (using the same line of thinking) because it constrained the spokes from bending along their length even more. It was this sort of idea that caused the style of the day to change.
I don't know the relative spoke tension values for comparison nor know of any other measured values for the 2 hubs. The difference is rather small from my experience so fashion likely drove the style more than actual differences.
Anyone have some parametric values to share?
Gary Watts
Vancouver, WA