Another day of wheel building (and so on).
A customer entrusted me with a Powertap hub.
20H (spokes).
For reasons already taken care of, the heat shrink tubing has been processed.
They wanted me to build a rear wheel with it, and
we initially considered hand-built tubeless-ready rims,
but that fell through.
With tubeless-ready rims that lack a hump (the bead seat protrusion),
depending on tire compatibility and other factors,
when a puncture occurs during riding, the tire can sometimes slip off the rim instantly.
I'm not just making this up—there are actual documented cases of this happening.
On tubeless-ready rims with nipple holes on the outer edge besides the valve hole,
some kind of rim tape is applied, so even if a hump were installed,
the rim tape would cover it and render it pointless.
This is why some rims omit the hump entirely.
If safety could be guaranteed for tubeless setups without a hump,
then you could simply fit a tubeless valve to a Ksyrium and call it tubeless,
and Campagnolo and Fulcrum wouldn't need to offer both
WO models and 2WAY-FIT models side by side.
If punctures could be prevented entirely, that would be fine,
but obviously that's not a realistic premise.
So the rim became an XR300.
Semi-competition 4-cross lacing, non-drive side, with tied-and-soldered spokes.
A customer entrusted me with a Powertap hub.
20H (spokes).
For reasons already taken care of, the heat shrink tubing has been processed.
They wanted me to build a rear wheel with it, and
we initially considered hand-built tubeless-ready rims,
but that fell through.
With tubeless-ready rims that lack a hump (the bead seat protrusion),
depending on tire compatibility and other factors,
when a puncture occurs during riding, the tire can sometimes slip off the rim instantly.
I'm not just making this up—there are actual documented cases of this happening.
On tubeless-ready rims with nipple holes on the outer edge besides the valve hole,
some kind of rim tape is applied, so even if a hump were installed,
the rim tape would cover it and render it pointless.
This is why some rims omit the hump entirely.
If safety could be guaranteed for tubeless setups without a hump,
then you could simply fit a tubeless valve to a Ksyrium and call it tubeless,
and Campagnolo and Fulcrum wouldn't need to offer both
WO models and 2WAY-FIT models side by side.
If punctures could be prevented entirely, that would be fine,
but obviously that's not a realistic premise.
So the rim became an XR300.
Semi-competition 4-cross lacing, non-drive side, with tied-and-soldered spokes.