A customer brought in a Ksyrium 125 for work.
This is a separate case from the one I did recently.
The customer installed the sprocket themselves.
They brought it in already mounted on the bike,
but since it's been zero miles ridden and was transported by car,
it's basically in new condition.
Looking at the spacing between the rear triangle of the frame and the rear brake,
it seemed like the center was off,
which is why they brought it in.
Unlike the 125 from the other day, there wasn't
abnormally low spoke tension,
but the rear rim was shifted about 2mm toward the non-freebody side.
It was obvious enough to see with the naked eye, I'd say.
I didn't want to loosen the carbon spokes on the non-freebody side,
so I mainly tightened up the freebody side to fix it.
The front wheel was perfectly centered with no wobble.
Since I have to remove the tire to check centering,
I also took care of other tasks like cleaning out metal shavings from inside the rim
and wrapping anti-rattle tape around the valve section of the tube.
This was purchased from a shop, but
they definitely just opened an unopened box right in front of the customer
and handed it over with a "Here you go!"
It's just a simple job of passing complete wheelsets from left to right without any inspection.
As a result, the customer got suspicious and brought it to our shop,
only to find that the center was seriously misaligned—it's just unbelievable.
Mavic wheelsets through domestic distributors are priced quite a bit higher
than overseas online shops,
yet this is the treatment you get—so what's the point of buying from a shop?
The risk of overseas online shopping is that
(not in the style of a Ozaki Hosai poem, but)
"If you get a lemon, you're on your own,"
but then shops should be doing final adjustments to make sure customers don't get lemons—
that's a shop's duty.
Following my usual line of thinking,
shops that fail this duty and then complain about losing customers to overseas online shopping
have no grounds for their complaints.
I had to remove the sprocket from the rear wheel for work purposes,
and there was a thin coat of grease on the steel freebody.
I don't do this myself, but it's effective for rust prevention.
I told the customer, "The wheel came uninspected, but there was some thoughtful care
in applying grease to the freebody,"
and they said, "Oh, I did that myself" (laughs).
I couldn't even follow up on that one.
They just pulled the wheel bag out of the box
and handed it over without really checking the contents, so
it makes sense they couldn't have installed the sprocket either.
The Exalith rim has left and right properties.
The rear wheel can't be mistaken, but the front wheel needs attention.
On the rear wheel, only the freebody side (right side facing the direction of travel) has aluminum spokes,
so that single yellow aluminum spoke is on the right side.
When the Exalith rim's left and right are oriented correctly,
the hub logos are readable from the direction of travel on both wheels.
In that configuration, the yellow spoke on the front wheel is on the right side,
same as the rear wheel.
At that point, the cone wrench adjustment nuts on the hubs
are on the left side for both front and rear wheels.
All the elements with left-right properties match correctly on both wheels.
However, the tire tread direction was reversed between front and rear.
The customer had also noticed this was off while mounting it on the bike.
Considering the tread direction, in this case
the rear wheel is correct and the front wheel is reversed.
So I'd think the front tire is wrong...but
checking Mavic's website, the tread direction is
reversed on both front and rear.
So it's actually the rear tire that's wrong.
I examined every part of the tire sidewall,
but there were no arrows indicating rotation direction,
and I only discovered that Mavic's tire supplier has changed
from Vittoria to Hutchinson.
The Mavic tires (Ixion Pro) in the catalog images
for the Ksyrium SLR have the tread facing the correct direction,
but the tires on the Ksyrium 125 are a proprietary product
that comes with the wheel and isn't sold separately, so I have no reference material.
By my own judgment, I prioritized tread direction on both wheels
and mounted them in the opposite direction from Mavic's website images.
Top to bottom is direction of travel, left is rear wheel, right is front wheel.
↑Continental's Grand Prix Attack has a similar pattern,
but those have a rotation direction specified.
Following that logic, the 125's tires should be mounted the way I installed them.
This is a separate case from the one I did recently.
The customer installed the sprocket themselves.
They brought it in already mounted on the bike,
but since it's been zero miles ridden and was transported by car,
it's basically in new condition.
Looking at the spacing between the rear triangle of the frame and the rear brake,
it seemed like the center was off,
which is why they brought it in.
Unlike the 125 from the other day, there wasn't
abnormally low spoke tension,
but the rear rim was shifted about 2mm toward the non-freebody side.
It was obvious enough to see with the naked eye, I'd say.
I didn't want to loosen the carbon spokes on the non-freebody side,
so I mainly tightened up the freebody side to fix it.
The front wheel was perfectly centered with no wobble.
Since I have to remove the tire to check centering,
I also took care of other tasks like cleaning out metal shavings from inside the rim
and wrapping anti-rattle tape around the valve section of the tube.
This was purchased from a shop, but
they definitely just opened an unopened box right in front of the customer
and handed it over with a "Here you go!"
It's just a simple job of passing complete wheelsets from left to right without any inspection.
As a result, the customer got suspicious and brought it to our shop,
only to find that the center was seriously misaligned—it's just unbelievable.
Mavic wheelsets through domestic distributors are priced quite a bit higher
than overseas online shops,
yet this is the treatment you get—so what's the point of buying from a shop?
The risk of overseas online shopping is that
(not in the style of a Ozaki Hosai poem, but)
"If you get a lemon, you're on your own,"
but then shops should be doing final adjustments to make sure customers don't get lemons—
that's a shop's duty.
Following my usual line of thinking,
shops that fail this duty and then complain about losing customers to overseas online shopping
have no grounds for their complaints.
I had to remove the sprocket from the rear wheel for work purposes,
and there was a thin coat of grease on the steel freebody.
I don't do this myself, but it's effective for rust prevention.
I told the customer, "The wheel came uninspected, but there was some thoughtful care
in applying grease to the freebody,"
and they said, "Oh, I did that myself" (laughs).
I couldn't even follow up on that one.
They just pulled the wheel bag out of the box
and handed it over without really checking the contents, so
it makes sense they couldn't have installed the sprocket either.
The Exalith rim has left and right properties.
The rear wheel can't be mistaken, but the front wheel needs attention.
On the rear wheel, only the freebody side (right side facing the direction of travel) has aluminum spokes,
so that single yellow aluminum spoke is on the right side.
When the Exalith rim's left and right are oriented correctly,
the hub logos are readable from the direction of travel on both wheels.
In that configuration, the yellow spoke on the front wheel is on the right side,
same as the rear wheel.
At that point, the cone wrench adjustment nuts on the hubs
are on the left side for both front and rear wheels.
All the elements with left-right properties match correctly on both wheels.
However, the tire tread direction was reversed between front and rear.
The customer had also noticed this was off while mounting it on the bike.
Considering the tread direction, in this case
the rear wheel is correct and the front wheel is reversed.
So I'd think the front tire is wrong...but
checking Mavic's website, the tread direction is
reversed on both front and rear.
So it's actually the rear tire that's wrong.
I examined every part of the tire sidewall,
but there were no arrows indicating rotation direction,
and I only discovered that Mavic's tire supplier has changed
from Vittoria to Hutchinson.
The Mavic tires (Ixion Pro) in the catalog images
for the Ksyrium SLR have the tread facing the correct direction,
but the tires on the Ksyrium 125 are a proprietary product
that comes with the wheel and isn't sold separately, so I have no reference material.
By my own judgment, I prioritized tread direction on both wheels
and mounted them in the opposite direction from Mavic's website images.
Top to bottom is direction of travel, left is rear wheel, right is front wheel.
↑Continental's Grand Prix Attack has a similar pattern,
but those have a rotation direction specified.
Following that logic, the 125's tires should be mounted the way I installed them.