After teaching team roping schools and competing in rodeo for so many years, I've heard a lot of different reasons for why people prefer long or short spokes in their loop. Each team roper figures out the spoke length that allows him to feel the tip of his or her rope best while roping. I think it's important for ropers to learn to feel the tip of your rope, because in order to be successful as a header or a heeler in the rodeo or roping arena, you have to be able to feel where the loop parts are in order to be accurate with the delivery of the loop.
I started swinging a rope when I was around 3 years old. I roped our dog, the chairs, the couch and everything else I could think of. Eventually, when I was 5 or 6, I started roping little dummies I made. We had a cast-iron steer-head boot jack, and I tied it to the top of the dinner-table chair. I put a pillow over the back of the chair, then tied the boot-jack head to the pillow. I had little make-believe ropings all by myself on that thing. I'd run across the dining room and into the living room, rope the horns and take the rope off. Then I'd lope like a steer on the way back across the room, and heel myself. I'd make literally a hundred runs a night, every night. I think they call that loving to rope, which is something that's never changed for me.
By handling a rope so much as a little kid I never had any problem feeling my loop parts. I've just always known where they were. So I learned naturally to know where every part of my rope is at any part of the rotation of my swing.
It takes a lot of hours of handling a rope to be able to develop a feel for where the tip, top and bottom of the loop are at all times when you're swinging it.
None of the top guys have any problem feeling the tip of their ropes. They've all gone through some type of process, whether they realize it or not, to where the loop becomes an extension of their fingers and hand, and they can place the loop anywhere they want. That kind of accuracy comes through feel, and you develop that by spending a lot of time with a rope in your hand.
