This is a continuation of my previous post?
The owner of the CSC wheel asked me to "write about this,"
so I also took a photo of the FiR 5-blade rear wheel.
They're planning to bring it to our shop eventually.
They want to change the axle width from 126mm to 130mm,
but since it has a threaded axle, that's possible.
Anyway, about this blade's curve direction—it seems backwards to me.
It's a freewheel hub on the rear wheel, and since the side where the sprockets attach is clearly defined,
you can't mount it backwards and use it.
With Xentis curved blade wheels,
the blade curve goes in the opposite direction from this FiR.
With Corima's cross 4-blade wheels, at first glance there seems to be no orientation,
but one side of the blade is rounded and the other is pointed,
so aerodynamically there's a rotation direction.
The Xentis I mentioned earlier also has the curved blade shaped so that
in the upper half of the wheel, the front is rounded and the rear tapers.
Much later than the freewheel era,
when I looked at FiR's 2002 catalog
the curved blade called "4RAZZE" also runs in the reverse-Xentis direction.
This is a front wheel photo, but 4RAZZE had a rear wheel version too.
But in the same catalog,
the "3RAZZE," which was front-wheel only, went in the Xentis direction.
What the hell?
If you used a front 3RAZZE and rear 4RAZZE together,
people would think you're "a kid who clearly doesn't understand which direction is correct!"
Assuming the blade front-to-back doesn't have any aerodynamic character,
which direction should a curved blade actually be mounted?
As I'm writing this, I don't have a clear answer myself.
I do think "that 5-blade at the beginning is probably wrong."
↑And yet here I am saying all this, but that Sugino 75 crank I shaved down the 5 arms on back in the day—it's oriented in the reverse-Xentis direction, you know.
The owner of the CSC wheel asked me to "write about this,"
so I also took a photo of the FiR 5-blade rear wheel.
They're planning to bring it to our shop eventually.
They want to change the axle width from 126mm to 130mm,
but since it has a threaded axle, that's possible.
Anyway, about this blade's curve direction—it seems backwards to me.
It's a freewheel hub on the rear wheel, and since the side where the sprockets attach is clearly defined,
you can't mount it backwards and use it.
With Xentis curved blade wheels,
the blade curve goes in the opposite direction from this FiR.
With Corima's cross 4-blade wheels, at first glance there seems to be no orientation,
but one side of the blade is rounded and the other is pointed,
so aerodynamically there's a rotation direction.
The Xentis I mentioned earlier also has the curved blade shaped so that
in the upper half of the wheel, the front is rounded and the rear tapers.
Much later than the freewheel era,
when I looked at FiR's 2002 catalog
the curved blade called "4RAZZE" also runs in the reverse-Xentis direction.
This is a front wheel photo, but 4RAZZE had a rear wheel version too.
But in the same catalog,
the "3RAZZE," which was front-wheel only, went in the Xentis direction.
What the hell?
If you used a front 3RAZZE and rear 4RAZZE together,
people would think you're "a kid who clearly doesn't understand which direction is correct!"
Assuming the blade front-to-back doesn't have any aerodynamic character,
which direction should a curved blade actually be mounted?
As I'm writing this, I don't have a clear answer myself.
I do think "that 5-blade at the beginning is probably wrong."
↑And yet here I am saying all this, but that Sugino 75 crank I shaved down the 5 arms on back in the day—it's oriented in the reverse-Xentis direction, you know.