I'm thinking about Nomu Lab Wheel #4.
I'm thinking about building #4 with a Kinlin TB-25 tubular rim I built before.
Within my available sources, 28H is the minimum spoke count, so
I'm planning to go with 28H front and rear.
When I built and sold a couple pairs with 32H before,
one customer brought in a 32H hub so I built that with 32H,
and another customer wanted 28H but we only had 32H in stock and the race was coming up soon
so we reluctantly built it with 32H,
but this time I'd like to wait for 28H stock to arrive.
The image above shows the latter—the "32H to make it to the race"—and since I was building with 32H anyway,
I figured I'd make them sing with ultra-high tension
and built them with Aero spokes from Star (discontinued) in an inpoke radial lacing—a special spec.
Since they're a race buddy, it was half a joke or a prank, but
they came back saying "stiff and fast!" and were actually wild about them (laughs).
For wheel #4, I'm using DT Competition spokes in a straight-pull configuration,
so it'll basically be wheel #1 but with the AL300 WO rim swapped for a tubular.
The price will also be ¥29,000 front and rear, same as #1.
A spec similar to the image above is possible with Sapim CX. Please feel free to inquire if interested.
Aluminum tubular wheels are pretty rare in complete wheelsets—basically limited to top-range models—so
I wanted to propose a wheel that's a good value and light (the rim's outer-section weight is comparable
to high-end aluminum rim complete wheelsets).
As for Nomu Lab Wheel #5, recently Tni came out with an AL22
aluminum rim supposedly weighing 380g.
I thought about building an aluminum rim lightweight WO wheel with it,
but it only comes in 32H.
Nomu Lab Wheel #1's Tni AL300 rim is
20H with a catalog weight of 460g, and actual measured weight around 460–462g.
Its front wheel comes to 667g with DT Competition spec,
but I want to estimate the weight if I built an AL22 rim with 32 Sapim CX-RAY spokes.
As shown above, a 2.0mm plain spoke weighs 0.0257g per 1mm, so
multiplying by the 276mm length used when building the AL300 gives me the weight of one spoke.
(Whether it's really 276mm is something I'm keeping vague—it's a trade secret—
but the calculation is fine.)
Then multiply by 20 spokes.
Further multiply by DT Competition's 90.3% ratio to 2.0mm plain,
and I get 128.1g.
Out of wheel #1's 667g,
128.1g comes from spoke weight.
I've mentioned the concept of spoke "specific gravity" repeatedly on this blog, but
there's also the reasonable opinion that
"the spoke's gravity will vary depending on the ratio of butted section to total length."
A 50mm CX-RAY and a 1000mm CX-RAY would have
different proportions of flattened section to total spoke length.
But in reality, usable lengths for 700C wheels are around 240–310mm.
Of those, the lengths I commonly use are around 272–296mm.
Within that range, I don't think it significantly hampers rough estimates.
I actually measured it under the conditions above as a test.
The estimate and measurement differ by 1.0g. I'd say that's "quite accurate."
I'll proceed with the estimate for what follows.
Building an AL22 rim with 32H compared to an AL300 rim with 20H,
the lower rim height means longer spokes, 12 more spokes,
and switching to CX-RAY gives me 149.6g.
That's a 21.5g increase in spoke weight.
Not shown in the diagram, but if I kept the same spokes instead of switching to CX-RAY,
it'd be a 79.8g increase.
If the rim weight matches the catalog spec of 380g, it comes to 608.5g.
Hmm. Tough call.
I could build it a bit lighter with DT Revolution spokes, but
with that spoke, once you reach a certain spoke tension, it feels like it converts the tension
into spoke elongation rather than pulling the rim.
The ratio for Revolution 2.0–1.5–2.0
comes to around 64.2, 64.4, 64.5%, so I calculate at 64.4%.
With such small differences, CX-RAY builds a far stiffer wheel,
so I basically don't use Revolution.
If I build with the AL22 rim and hit 599g, if I could just get into
the 500g range, that round-number threshold would make people think "light!!" pretty easily.
But it seems a bit difficult. I could use a lighter hub, but
there's the price-to-performance balance to consider, so it's tricky.
About that 599 figure—it only looks special because we're looking at decimal.
In binary it's 1001010111, in hexadecimal it's 257.
I'll offer that as a weak excuse.
Whether the AL22 rim becomes Nomu Lab Wheel #5 is still undecided (though #4 is confirmed).
I'll source the rim once and build it.
↑First I need to build the pre-ordered #1 wheels.
I still have a chance to source hubs before the year ends, so I'll do my best.
I'm thinking about building #4 with a Kinlin TB-25 tubular rim I built before.
Within my available sources, 28H is the minimum spoke count, so
I'm planning to go with 28H front and rear.
When I built and sold a couple pairs with 32H before,
one customer brought in a 32H hub so I built that with 32H,
and another customer wanted 28H but we only had 32H in stock and the race was coming up soon
so we reluctantly built it with 32H,
but this time I'd like to wait for 28H stock to arrive.
The image above shows the latter—the "32H to make it to the race"—and since I was building with 32H anyway,
I figured I'd make them sing with ultra-high tension
and built them with Aero spokes from Star (discontinued) in an inpoke radial lacing—a special spec.
Since they're a race buddy, it was half a joke or a prank, but
they came back saying "stiff and fast!" and were actually wild about them (laughs).
For wheel #4, I'm using DT Competition spokes in a straight-pull configuration,
so it'll basically be wheel #1 but with the AL300 WO rim swapped for a tubular.
The price will also be ¥29,000 front and rear, same as #1.
A spec similar to the image above is possible with Sapim CX. Please feel free to inquire if interested.
Aluminum tubular wheels are pretty rare in complete wheelsets—basically limited to top-range models—so
I wanted to propose a wheel that's a good value and light (the rim's outer-section weight is comparable
to high-end aluminum rim complete wheelsets).
As for Nomu Lab Wheel #5, recently Tni came out with an AL22
aluminum rim supposedly weighing 380g.
I thought about building an aluminum rim lightweight WO wheel with it,
but it only comes in 32H.
Nomu Lab Wheel #1's Tni AL300 rim is
20H with a catalog weight of 460g, and actual measured weight around 460–462g.
Its front wheel comes to 667g with DT Competition spec,
but I want to estimate the weight if I built an AL22 rim with 32 Sapim CX-RAY spokes.
As shown above, a 2.0mm plain spoke weighs 0.0257g per 1mm, so
multiplying by the 276mm length used when building the AL300 gives me the weight of one spoke.
(Whether it's really 276mm is something I'm keeping vague—it's a trade secret—
but the calculation is fine.)
Then multiply by 20 spokes.
Further multiply by DT Competition's 90.3% ratio to 2.0mm plain,
and I get 128.1g.
Out of wheel #1's 667g,
128.1g comes from spoke weight.
I've mentioned the concept of spoke "specific gravity" repeatedly on this blog, but
there's also the reasonable opinion that
"the spoke's gravity will vary depending on the ratio of butted section to total length."
A 50mm CX-RAY and a 1000mm CX-RAY would have
different proportions of flattened section to total spoke length.
But in reality, usable lengths for 700C wheels are around 240–310mm.
Of those, the lengths I commonly use are around 272–296mm.
Within that range, I don't think it significantly hampers rough estimates.
I actually measured it under the conditions above as a test.
The estimate and measurement differ by 1.0g. I'd say that's "quite accurate."
I'll proceed with the estimate for what follows.
Building an AL22 rim with 32H compared to an AL300 rim with 20H,
the lower rim height means longer spokes, 12 more spokes,
and switching to CX-RAY gives me 149.6g.
That's a 21.5g increase in spoke weight.
Not shown in the diagram, but if I kept the same spokes instead of switching to CX-RAY,
it'd be a 79.8g increase.
If the rim weight matches the catalog spec of 380g, it comes to 608.5g.
Hmm. Tough call.
I could build it a bit lighter with DT Revolution spokes, but
with that spoke, once you reach a certain spoke tension, it feels like it converts the tension
into spoke elongation rather than pulling the rim.
The ratio for Revolution 2.0–1.5–2.0
comes to around 64.2, 64.4, 64.5%, so I calculate at 64.4%.
With such small differences, CX-RAY builds a far stiffer wheel,
so I basically don't use Revolution.
If I build with the AL22 rim and hit 599g, if I could just get into
the 500g range, that round-number threshold would make people think "light!!" pretty easily.
But it seems a bit difficult. I could use a lighter hub, but
there's the price-to-performance balance to consider, so it's tricky.
About that 599 figure—it only looks special because we're looking at decimal.
In binary it's 1001010111, in hexadecimal it's 257.
I'll offer that as a weak excuse.
Whether the AL22 rim becomes Nomu Lab Wheel #5 is still undecided (though #4 is confirmed).
I'll source the rim once and build it.
↑First I need to build the pre-ordered #1 wheels.
I still have a chance to source hubs before the year ends, so I'll do my best.