However, if you model/examine the forces involved, the load is carried by the spokes under the hub and the spokes do not experience greater load when they are a

However, if you model/examine the forces involved, the load is carried by the spokes under the hub and the spokes do not experience greater load when they are at the top. From https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/the-science-behind-spokes https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/the-science-behind-spokes > There’s vigorous disagreement over whether a bike in effect hangs from the upper spokes (those above the hub as you view the bike from the side) or rather is being supported by the lower ones, acting like tiny pillars. ‘The latter view, odd as it seems, is definitively the case,’ says Jim Papadopoulos from Northeastern University’s College of Engineering in Boston, USA, and the co-author of Bicycling Science. > While it’s easy to believe a bicycle spoke would simply collapse under the weight of bike and rider, he goes on to explain that the tension created in a spoke during the wheel building process (called ‘pre-tension’) is what allows the lower spokes to bear the load without buckling, as they would if there was no pre-tension. ‘Every spoke on the unloaded wheel has a tension of the order of 100lb [445N]. When the axle is pressed towards the ground with a force of 100lb, the only significant effect on spoke tensions is to reduce those directly below the hub – typically, one reduces to about 50lb and spokes to each side of that one reduce to about 75lb. This is exactly what one would see with solid wooden spokes like an old wagon wheel – the bottom one would carry 50lb and those to either side of it would carry 25lb. The difference with wire spoked wheels is that a wire spoke cannot carry a compression load – it will collapse. So all spokes are ingeniously pre-tensioned. A wire cannot carry a compression load of 50lb, except when it already carries a tension load exceeding that.