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I just wanted to make sure I understood the guy at the shop.

The spoke calculator gives you left side and right side spokes lengths

Left side go on the non drive side i.e. the side where the rotor is, right side goes on drive side i.e. the side the free hub body is on, yes?

Just out of curiosity what would happen if you got them the wrong way round? Are there signs that suggest you have done so?

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    Assuming that both sides use the same "cross" arrangement, the shorter spokes go on the drive side, so that the offset due to the drive mechanism will be compensated for and the wheel will be centered.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 12:00
  • Yes, right side is the drive side. Note that if your spokes and spoke lengths are the same for both sizes this won't matter, of course. (some people use different spokes for rear drive/non-drive sides on non-disc wheels. Not sure about disc) If you get the sizes off a little it's usually OK.. get them off a lot and the wheel will be hard/impossible to build ;) And yeah.. shorter spokes go on the drive side. (though in my last wheel the difference was ~0.5mm so I used 290mm spokes for both sides)
    – Terry Seidler
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 12:19
  • If you swapped the L/R spokes, the drive side spokes would be to long and the non drive side spokes would be too short.
    – Argenti Apparatus
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 14:58
  • I now have a belly dancer for a wheel. I completely failed to add tension evenly LOOOL. I'M SIMPLY THE BEST!!
    – Ageis
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 15:24
  • Are you actually using a wheel truing stand?
    – Argenti Apparatus
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 15:55

2 Answers 2

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Yes, right side is the drive side. Assuming that both sides use the same "cross" arrangement the shorter spokes go on the drive side of the rear wheel, so that the offset due to the drive mechanism will be compensated for and the wheel will be centered.

If you swapped the L/R spokes, the drive side spokes would be to long and the non drive side spokes would be too short.

Note that if your spokes and spoke lengths are the same for both sizes this won't matter, of course.

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"Left" and "right" are from the perspective of somebody1 who's riding the bike so, yes, the right side is the drive side.

The different lengths are because the rim needs to be centred with respect to the hub and cassette together, so the drive-side spokes are at a steeper angle (closer to the vertical plane) than the non-drive-side ones. If you fitted the spokes the wrong way around, the wheel would be much too far to the left and probably wouldn't fit between the chain stays.

1 Not this guy.

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