A customer brought in an FF Yamaguchi F6R for me to work on.
It's similar to the ROVAL article I just wrote about.
They swapped out the freewheel body from Shimano 10-speed to Shimano 11-speed,
and they wanted me to do the wheel centering that comes with that work.
Before I started, I showed the customer the wheel's current state—
the rim was seriously misaligned toward the non-freewheel side.
When swapping the freewheel body, the right end nut got longer,
so only the right side of the wheel extended
and relative to the new wheel center,
the rim ended up shifted toward the non-freewheel side.
Just tightening up the freewheel side wasn't enough to bring the rim back to center,
so I also loosened the non-freewheel side a bit.
↑I mentioned "FF Yamaguchi" at the start
because that's what's written on the rim.
With DT's Ratchet freehubs, except right after swapping the freewheel body,
the right end nut seats onto the axle almost like it's press-fit,
so removing the freewheel body is no easy task.
In most cases you need a tool called a "hub axle wrench."
So the odds of the customer being able to remove the 10-speed freewheel body smoothly on their own
are pretty slim.
When I asked about this, they said the shop handled the freewheel body swap,
but they didn't mention the centering work because the shop "seemed like they didn't want to do it."
In a case like this, we know for certain the center will be off,
so the freewheel body swap and wheel centering should be one continuous job.
Not doing it is like swapping out a rear derailleur without adjusting the shifting.
The F6R rim has a curved, concave rim sidewall—
it's designed to pursue aerodynamics.
FF Yamaguchi touts this feature, but honestly,
there's no special "manufacturer" philosophy behind it
and it wasn't the result of their own development—
it's simply that "the R60CF rim they bought happened to have this shape."
In other words, this is the same as if they said
"We've adopted 0.9×2.3mm elliptical aero spokes that boast about two-thirds the weight of 14-gauge plain spokes!"
when really they just bought Sapim CX-RAY spokes off the shelf and those are just the spec sheet numbers—
it's not a special design choice FF Yamaguchi came up with themselves.
It's similar to the ROVAL article I just wrote about.
They swapped out the freewheel body from Shimano 10-speed to Shimano 11-speed,
and they wanted me to do the wheel centering that comes with that work.
Before I started, I showed the customer the wheel's current state—
the rim was seriously misaligned toward the non-freewheel side.
When swapping the freewheel body, the right end nut got longer,
so only the right side of the wheel extended
and relative to the new wheel center,
the rim ended up shifted toward the non-freewheel side.
Just tightening up the freewheel side wasn't enough to bring the rim back to center,
so I also loosened the non-freewheel side a bit.
↑I mentioned "FF Yamaguchi" at the start
because that's what's written on the rim.
With DT's Ratchet freehubs, except right after swapping the freewheel body,
the right end nut seats onto the axle almost like it's press-fit,
so removing the freewheel body is no easy task.
In most cases you need a tool called a "hub axle wrench."
So the odds of the customer being able to remove the 10-speed freewheel body smoothly on their own
are pretty slim.
When I asked about this, they said the shop handled the freewheel body swap,
but they didn't mention the centering work because the shop "seemed like they didn't want to do it."
In a case like this, we know for certain the center will be off,
so the freewheel body swap and wheel centering should be one continuous job.
Not doing it is like swapping out a rear derailleur without adjusting the shifting.
The F6R rim has a curved, concave rim sidewall—
it's designed to pursue aerodynamics.
FF Yamaguchi touts this feature, but honestly,
there's no special "manufacturer" philosophy behind it
and it wasn't the result of their own development—
it's simply that "the R60CF rim they bought happened to have this shape."
In other words, this is the same as if they said
"We've adopted 0.9×2.3mm elliptical aero spokes that boast about two-thirds the weight of 14-gauge plain spokes!"
when really they just bought Sapim CX-RAY spokes off the shelf and those are just the spec sheet numbers—
it's not a special design choice FF Yamaguchi came up with themselves.