Jalon Hawk went on his first multi week bicycle tour when he was 14 years old. Becoming familiar with loads that wheels were forced to live through led the kid to start building hoops at an early age. It was in the early years of mountain biking that he became aware of the stresses that were unique to off road riding.
----------Most folks when grabbing air never came down squarely on their wheels.--------
This horizontal load more often than not caused the rear wheel to 'potato-chip'.
Realizing that the rear wheel's non-drive side spokes were half the tension of that of the drive side (caused by dishing), he decided to play with the lacing pattern. After a few builds and some heavy testing, it was decided that a radial spoke pattern on the non drive side at a tension of 200 lbs. for each spoke would cause the wheel to become stable. He believed that because radial lacing was 'stiffer' than the three cross pattern used on the drive side, the wheel became more stable. The short coming if this was that this caused the drive side to have tensions in the area of 400+lbs. Hub material became an issue because of the newly found design. Any material other than 7000 series aluminum used in the hub flange would have a very short life span (two weeks!).
At the time Bullseye hubs were the only available with this material and thus became the foundation of the "Signature Wheels" Not only made of the desired material, these hubs are of a three piece design so as to allow spoke head 'counter sink' that allows for proper spoke seating. This helps in preventing spoke head breakage which brings up another advantage of this lacing design. When the non-drive side is radial in pattern, the 'wind-up' forces of the rear wheel during heavy torque no longer becomes an issue. This creates a very stable wheel during acceleration. It also prevents the spoke head from rocking in the seat, preventing it from being sliced.
Jalon started out with a guarantee of 5 (five) years that the wheel would not go out of true more than .030 inch side to side using Bullseye Hubs, DT spokes and Sun CRT20, CRT18 or CRT16 rims. This guarantee involved materials and workmanship defects, and did not cover flat spots caused by improper tire pressures or use of a tire less than 1.9inch. After almost 13 years (the first was built in December of 1987) and well over a thousand wheels built, we have seen only 15 come back, warranting only 5 of those. The stories that were shared as to what it took to cause the wheel to fold, well, were interesting none the least. Seven of those folks called from a hospital bed. (Not caused because of wheel failure).The only change to this date in this guarantee is to .020 of an inch because of this reliability.
The Spoke; At last we can only elaborate on one other item that can make a difference in wheel design. Jalon believes that straight gauge stainless steel spokes for off road are a good cost effective choice and if one is performance minded then one should look no further than TI spokes. An article that is reproduced without permission about Ti spokes is just a click away. Marwi/Union spokes
Take a look at all the high performance wheels available that have a proven track record for performance and reliability. They all use a version of this lacing concept. Different hub designs have been manufactured, but the end result is the same performance at a significant increase in cost. If you have a combination that you would like built, please inquire!