Before I get into the wheel story in the title.
About the origin of the 88mm high rim wheel I rebuilt the other day (→here)
I was being evasive about it, but I'll continue that story.
First, quite a while ago I built a wheel with a
Suntour Superbe large flange 36-hole track hub.
A rim with this kind of height and 36 holes is so niche that
you can basically only get it by ordering custom hole counts.
This is a carbon rim handled by a place called Mechanico.
The owner of this wheel told me, so I know it's accurate.
Then later I rebuilt this 24-hole wheel for a different reason,
and since the sticker on the valve hole was the same,
I assumed this was also a Mechanico rim.
I don't often ask customers about the history of their wheels,
so I genuinely don't know where this one came from.
Anyway
A customer entrusted me with an LWC 88mm carbon rim.
This one is also rare at 32 holes given the rim height.
The flat weave pattern is UD (unidirectional),
and the carbon twill weave pattern is 3K finish,
but this one is a matte 3K finish.
I'm not trying to say that the first 88mm was UD, the next 88mm was glossy 3K, and these three rims are the same except for finish.
The characteristic feature is that the nipple hole depth is made fairly large.
ENVE has this part very thin, but they secure strength through a troublesome manufacturing method that affects cost
(the mold already has holes drilled in it during molding = you only need different molds for different spoke hole counts),
so there's no problem. In fact, despite being thin, spokes actually tension up more smoothly than most other carbon rims.
Other manufacturers use similar enough methods
(drilling after molding the rim), so having this deep here gives peace of mind.
I'll use a Gran Compe track hub.
A very troublesome problem arose.
There are no spokes.
The length needed would be similar to a small-wheel rim or even shorter,
but with plain spokes you can cut them as short as you need, so no problem there.
With Sapim CX-RAY, the distributor's standard stock goes
down to about 194mm, so no problem.
The problem is with 2.0-1.8-2.0mm butted spokes.
The customer wanted black Compe,
but the distributor's shortest standard stock for both DT black Compe and Sapim black Race
is around 260mm.
Compe and Race have slightly different lengths of 2.0mm section that can be cut,
but they're the same in that they can't provide the spoke length this wheel needs.
Like in the diagram above, it's theoretically possible to cut to 2.0-1.8mm
and thread an M15 on the 1.8mm section,
and I've actually done this a few times on my own wheels,
but thinking about how the butted section is made,
it's clearly not a "proper" 1.8mm diameter for threading an M15,
so I'm too nervous to sell it as a product.
So we're building with 1.8mm plain black spokes.
But again, there are no spokes available.
DT black Champion only comes in 2.0mm in the distributor's standard stock.
There's 1.8mm in silver, but...
The small-wheel I built the other day also uses 1.8mm plain for the same reason (no butted spokes available),
but that one was silver Champion.
Sapim black Race 1.8mm plain
only comes in 293mm according to the length availability chart.
Well, if we have this, we're fine.
We can make all spokes 293mm or shorter.
But they said they don't have 293mm in stock.
I thought we were done for...
But they said they do have a different length.
The length they mentioned with "it's quite far off though..." was
310mm. Wow, this is the strongest solution.
With just this one length, there's nothing to worry about.
It's an off-menu item not on the stock chart, but we barely managed to be saved.
Got them built.
Starting with the rear wheel.
Sapim Race 1.8mm plain 32-hole 666 JIS lacing.
Since there's a possibility the left and right could be flipped, I used JIS lacing.
This hub has one side threaded for fixed gear, and
the other side threaded for freewheel.
The front wheel is Sapim Race 1.8mm plain radial lacing with counter spokes.
At this rim height, even for my own wheels,
radial lacing is counter-spoke only choice.
By the way, this hub is also the base hub for my silly wheel,
"Nomu Lab Wheel #1 3-3-7".
Regarding the true original origin of this 88mm rim, I really don't know,
but I'm not expecting enthusiasts to tip me off by writing it like this.
Even if I get information in the comments, I won't post any of it here,
and I'm not particularly interested anyway.
Well actually, even if I did know, I wouldn't tell ya! ←Wow what a rude guy!
S-o-r-r-y for the wait! This time's and actually last time's too
P-l-e-a-s-e check out the image below!
↑S-t-o-p it!!
But it looks like we managed to keep the rim information under wraps.
About the origin of the 88mm high rim wheel I rebuilt the other day (→here)
I was being evasive about it, but I'll continue that story.
First, quite a while ago I built a wheel with a
Suntour Superbe large flange 36-hole track hub.
A rim with this kind of height and 36 holes is so niche that
you can basically only get it by ordering custom hole counts.
This is a carbon rim handled by a place called Mechanico.
The owner of this wheel told me, so I know it's accurate.
Then later I rebuilt this 24-hole wheel for a different reason,
and since the sticker on the valve hole was the same,
I assumed this was also a Mechanico rim.
I don't often ask customers about the history of their wheels,
so I genuinely don't know where this one came from.
Anyway
A customer entrusted me with an LWC 88mm carbon rim.
This one is also rare at 32 holes given the rim height.
The flat weave pattern is UD (unidirectional),
and the carbon twill weave pattern is 3K finish,
but this one is a matte 3K finish.
The characteristic feature is that the nipple hole depth is made fairly large.
ENVE has this part very thin, but they secure strength through a troublesome manufacturing method that affects cost
(the mold already has holes drilled in it during molding = you only need different molds for different spoke hole counts),
so there's no problem. In fact, despite being thin, spokes actually tension up more smoothly than most other carbon rims.
Other manufacturers use similar enough methods
(drilling after molding the rim), so having this deep here gives peace of mind.
I'll use a Gran Compe track hub.
A very troublesome problem arose.
There are no spokes.
The length needed would be similar to a small-wheel rim or even shorter,
but with plain spokes you can cut them as short as you need, so no problem there.
With Sapim CX-RAY, the distributor's standard stock goes
down to about 194mm, so no problem.
The problem is with 2.0-1.8-2.0mm butted spokes.
The customer wanted black Compe,
but the distributor's shortest standard stock for both DT black Compe and Sapim black Race
is around 260mm.
Compe and Race have slightly different lengths of 2.0mm section that can be cut,
but they're the same in that they can't provide the spoke length this wheel needs.
Like in the diagram above, it's theoretically possible to cut to 2.0-1.8mm
and thread an M15 on the 1.8mm section,
and I've actually done this a few times on my own wheels,
but thinking about how the butted section is made,
it's clearly not a "proper" 1.8mm diameter for threading an M15,
so I'm too nervous to sell it as a product.
So we're building with 1.8mm plain black spokes.
But again, there are no spokes available.
DT black Champion only comes in 2.0mm in the distributor's standard stock.
There's 1.8mm in silver, but...
The small-wheel I built the other day also uses 1.8mm plain for the same reason (no butted spokes available),
but that one was silver Champion.
Sapim black Race 1.8mm plain
only comes in 293mm according to the length availability chart.
Well, if we have this, we're fine.
We can make all spokes 293mm or shorter.
But they said they don't have 293mm in stock.
I thought we were done for...
But they said they do have a different length.
The length they mentioned with "it's quite far off though..." was
310mm. Wow, this is the strongest solution.
With just this one length, there's nothing to worry about.
It's an off-menu item not on the stock chart, but we barely managed to be saved.
Got them built.
Starting with the rear wheel.
Sapim Race 1.8mm plain 32-hole 666 JIS lacing.
Since there's a possibility the left and right could be flipped, I used JIS lacing.
This hub has one side threaded for fixed gear, and
the other side threaded for freewheel.
The front wheel is Sapim Race 1.8mm plain radial lacing with counter spokes.
At this rim height, even for my own wheels,
radial lacing is counter-spoke only choice.
By the way, this hub is also the base hub for my silly wheel,
"Nomu Lab Wheel #1 3-3-7".
Regarding the true original origin of this 88mm rim, I really don't know,
but I'm not expecting enthusiasts to tip me off by writing it like this.
Even if I get information in the comments, I won't post any of it here,
and I'm not particularly interested anyway.
Well actually, even if I did know, I wouldn't tell ya! ←Wow what a rude guy!
S-o-r-r-y for the wait! This time's and actually last time's too
P-l-e-a-s-e check out the image below!
↑S-t-o-p it!!
But it looks like we managed to keep the rim information under wraps.