I disagree with your analysis of State 2. There's a 500N force from the ground pushing up on the rim. The bottom spoke will thus have a 500N reduction in tensi

I disagree with your analysis of State 2. There's a 500N force from the ground pushing up on the rim. The bottom spoke will thus have a 500N reduction in tension which balances and results in no movement of the hub. The top spoke doesn't change in tension as it's still balancing the 1000N of the bottom spoke and rim forces. State 3 is a different scenario and in that instance, the hub is hanging from the rim. I don't see how it helps with the comparison as that's nothing to do with a wire wheel. In reality, you'd expect to see the rim buckle as the forces are now being applied purely at the top rather than opposed spokes distributing the 1000N between top and bottom. I agree with state 4, but again, that's a different system and doesn't help clarify what's happening. From this article: https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/the-science-behind-spokes https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/the-science-behind-spokes > 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. > ‘Of course a bike wheel will collapse if the upper or horizontal spokes are removed,’ Papadopoulos adds. ‘But that is essentially because the altered structure has a very different load path, and furthermore is unable to supply the required pre-tension. We can’t use that collapse to conclude that the typical wheel carries load through the upper spokes.’