Any experience about radially-laced hub flanges actually breaking? Most hub manufacturers forbid lacing spokes radially, mostly because there is less material in the radial direction away from a flange hole than in the standard 3-cross, tangential lacing.

(UPDATE: as it appears, the actual breaking point is the material betwen consecutive spoke holes in the flange, the spoke holes acting like a perforated-toilet-paper effect...)

I have previously laced a Shimano front hub radially and rode it a lot, and nothing happened. Some friends of mine have done the same in the past (allways front wheel, always XC mountainbike), and nothing happened either. Currently, I have just laced another hub radially, and I am pretty sure nothing evil will happen, but still there is some discomfort for doing a theoretically Wrong Thing.

So, I want to ask you about FACTS (disregarding what manufacturers say): is there any WITNESSED (by yourselves, not internet stories) evidence that radially spoked FRONT hub flanges have ACTUALLY BREAKED? Any photos, stories, or preferrably shop experience?

(ANOTHER UPDATE: as already mentioned, there are a lot of photos and stories about hub flanges broken with radially laced spokes. But, as it turns out, if the search terms contain only "broken hub flange", and not "radial", there are also a lot of photos and stories of broken flanges with standard cross-laced spokes. This makes me think of flanges braeaking for a lot of possible causes, but when this happens with radial spokes, it draws more attention and provokes some confusion bias about causality, relating the failure to the spoke pattern instead of other form of abuse or material wearing.)

Thanks very much!
While it is possible for a hub flange to fail due to radial lacing, if the wheel is built properly, to proper tension, it doesn't happen, generally.

The reason it happens is because the amount of material between the spoke head and the edge of the flange is least when the spoke is pulling directly to the edge.  Under normal usage, the flange has more than enough strength, even when laced radially.  

However, if the wheel is laced with too much tension, or if the wheel is placed under abnormal stress, like when used for braking on a fixed gear, then the hub flange is more likely to fail when radially laced, than when laced with a proper crossing pattern.  

It can still fail, even when crossed, but it is far more likely when laced radially, due to the smaller amount of material, and more direct tension on the flange.

I have used radially laced wheels, mainly for BMX racing as a kid,  I have had only one failure of a hub flange, though, and that was on a Bontrager Race XXX Lite rear wheel in 2003. That wheel uses a radially laced, paired spoke pattern, which I do believe contributed to the failure.  They are also excessively high tension wheels, due to the low spoke count, and I think it took both the radial pattern, and the excessively high tension to cause the flange to break.

I hope that helps.