Bicycle wheel how well the wheel transmits propulsive and braking forces, if applied at the hub, as in the case of hub or disc brakes. Several factors affect these stiffnesses to varying degrees. These include wheel radius, rim bending and torsional stiffness, number of spokes, spoke gauge, lacing pattern, hub stiffness, hub flange spacing, hub radius. In general lateral and radial stiffness decreases with the number of spoke crossings and torsional stiffness increases with the number of spoke crossings. One factor that has little influence on these stiffnesses is spoke tension. Too much spoke tension, however, can lead to catastrophic failure in
Bicycle wheel of center. "Vertical truing" refers to adjustments of local deviations (known as hop) of the radius, the distance from the rim to the center of the hub. "Dish" refers to the left-right centering of the plane of the rim between the lock nuts on the outside ends of the axle. This plane is itself determined as an average of local deviations in the lateral truing. For most rim-brake bicycles, the dish will be symmetrical on the front wheel. However, on the rear wheel, because most bicycles accommodate a rear sprocket (or group of them), the dishing will often be asymmetrical: