Maybe it's because I'm freezing up here in Settle where the temperature has been down around minus 13 for several days, we've got around 40cms of snow...and let's face it I'm just not used to such conditions...give me the rain any day...so I am feeling depressed and looking for a fight. ..even if it's just of words.So I am going to disagree on the suggestion that large flange or high flange hubs were just a fashion. And just be perverse I am going to state categorically that he real term for such hubs is LARGE FLANGE - this being the translation of the French term for such hubs which is Grandes Flasques.
High flange in French would be Hautes Flasques...and this really is a No-No ...and let's face it...the French hub makers such as Perrin, Pelissier, Maillard ( Maillard, Normandy etc) Alpin, Maxicar, Prior, Exceltoo have probably turned out more pairs than almost any other country.
Large flange hubs were very often chosen because they enabled the wheelbuilder to use shorter spokes which were lighter than longer ones and shorter spokes also produced, by and large, stiffer wheels. Hence the very common use of large flange hubs for track racing bkes on which, more often than not the spokes were also tied and soldered.
It was very common practice in the 70s and 80s to use largeflange hubs for specialist time-trial wheels in which the front wheel would probably have radial spoking and the rear wheel would have 2X or 3X, or radial..or a mixture of these patterns. I remember that hubs such as the Maillard 700 and the Pelissier 2000 with its oddly shaped cut-outs were in very heavy demand by those riders who did not want to ride Campagnolo. My shop even used to customise other lesser brands and models, drill extra holes in the flanges after the style of the early Prior an FBs, hone and polish the bearings..so that the impecunious rider could still have some style to his wheels.
Large flange hubs were also extremely popular for the wheels of touring bikes as they permitted the easy use of the 4-cross spoking pattern in which the spoke leaves the flange at almost a perfect tangent . 4-cross spoking provided very strong and resilient wheels as even though the 4-cross spoke would normally be longer and heavier than a 3-cross one..the effect of the larger flange was to reduce the length and therefore, weight of the spoke. Similarly, depending on the chosen use for the touring bike the spokes could be laced double 4-cross ie both sides of the wheel or just 4-cross on the gear side and 3-cross on the other. Another variation on this pattern was to use single gauge spokes on the gear-side and D/B on the non-gear.
Returning to the theme of the Spanish style of lacing wheels that was discussed recently, althopugh I ever ventured into using it myself, I recall that when used with large flange hubs, it was claimed that enormously rigid wheels would result. When used on a paire of 24-spoke wheels the resulant wheels were much more rigid than they would have been with any other pattern of lacing. I seem to recall that the COOLEST variation on this theme was the 30-spoke wheels built using ZEUS hubs. Ron Kitching, the renowned cycle accessory importer who was the ZEUS agent for the UK actually persuaded the Spanish company to drill some of their hubs with 30 holes and then persuaded a rim maker..possibly MAVIC or WOLBER (probably) to drill matching rims. The rfesultant whels were used mailny for road racing.
Norris Lockley
Settle UK (My fingers are turning an odd blue colour now..so had better sign off)