I had an old set of XTR FH-M950 hubs laying around after the Mavic 517's they were laced to gave way. (Two-cross with Revolution spokes and aluminum nipples. Raced them for 6 seasons before I wore through the sidewalls.) They were begging me for redeployment, so I said "OK, you win" and bought a pair of Alex Adventurer rims.
If you haven't familiarized yourself with Alex Adventurer rims yet, you probably should. They are the most cost-effective training rim out there. They build up almost perfect, have eyelets and machined sidewalls, and are a true double-wall. "RACER'S EDGE" glares at you prominently from the decals, but at 540 grams for a 26" rim, they're about a third of a pound on the chubby side for number plate duty. But for beater wheels, they're a great option!
My idea was this: crow's foot lacing only works with spoke counts in multiples of 6: 24 hole, 36 hole, or 48 hole drillings are the only conventional ones that work. Otherwise, there is a hybrid crow's foot that looks pretty cool and works on wheels with multiples of 8 (which is most of them, except 28 hole). I've got these sweet hubs just pining to be used again, but they're 32 hole. So I thought about it for a while, drew some pictures while daydreaming in service meetings (sorry, Pete), and figured that if I took the crow's foot pattern, but used two adjacent radial spokes, crossing spokes would be three cross length and tangent at the flange. It would probably be a nice, strong, stable wheel, and it would be something different.
At last I had time to execute it, so I cut some spokes on the handy Phil Wood Spoke Cobbler: 16 radial (253 mm) and 16 3X (265 mm). I made the 3X spokes black, thinking it would look all awesome and stuff, but it wasn't as striking in appearance as I'd hoped. It looks more like I patched a disaster back together with some franken-spokes. That's OK, we'll call it theft deterrent.
Lacing was a snap. I did all the radial first, alternating heads in and out, and then ran the crossing spokes inside the radials. This was a somewhat arbitrary decision, but it seemed like there was better bracing this way. Plus, if I bust a spoke, it won't require a major tear-down to get at any of them. Given the type of service this wheel will see, this is a good thing.
Test ride coming soon!