I received a 9000 C50 wheel set from a customer.
Shimano's top-grade complete wheels consistently come with 16-spoke front wheels
regardless of rim height or lacing pattern.
The insistence on 16 spokes even with low-profile rims
is clearly misguided, but setting that aside,
the idea that "20 spokes would actually mean more spokes and 16 is better"
really starts to make sense from this C50 onwards.
The 9000 complete wheel hub is designed with thoughtful
spoke head geometry to prevent spokes from rotating,
but I still found a spoke that had rotated. When I checked the flange
(the image is a bit blurry)
the design's efforts were in vain—it had rotated at the root.
I can't tell if this happened during use while riding,
but trying to turn the spoke with a spoke wrench was impossible.
Forcing it would cause it to twist.
So I released the tension first, corrected the spoke orientation,
and then re-tensioned,
but this seems unlikely to occur from riding use,
so I suspect it was like this from the start.
The lateral runout was minimal.
The process of releasing and re-tensioning spoke tension
is almost the same amount of work as spoke replacement.
Moving on to another matter.
Different customer from the wheel at the beginning, but this is their companion's bike.
This one had quite a bit of runout on both front and rear wheels.
The amount was impossible to pass Shimano's inspection standards,
so it's simply runout that developed from riding.
↑The top edge of the rim is scuffed and scratched,
but there's no particular problem.
No need to adjust the brake shoe any lower.
All four wheels mentioned above
had matching center-to-flange offset deviations, as if by design.
Shimano's top-grade complete wheels consistently come with 16-spoke front wheels
regardless of rim height or lacing pattern.
The insistence on 16 spokes even with low-profile rims
is clearly misguided, but setting that aside,
the idea that "20 spokes would actually mean more spokes and 16 is better"
really starts to make sense from this C50 onwards.
The 9000 complete wheel hub is designed with thoughtful
spoke head geometry to prevent spokes from rotating,
but I still found a spoke that had rotated. When I checked the flange
(the image is a bit blurry)
the design's efforts were in vain—it had rotated at the root.
I can't tell if this happened during use while riding,
but trying to turn the spoke with a spoke wrench was impossible.
Forcing it would cause it to twist.
So I released the tension first, corrected the spoke orientation,
and then re-tensioned,
but this seems unlikely to occur from riding use,
so I suspect it was like this from the start.
The lateral runout was minimal.
The process of releasing and re-tensioning spoke tension
is almost the same amount of work as spoke replacement.
Moving on to another matter.
Different customer from the wheel at the beginning, but this is their companion's bike.
This one had quite a bit of runout on both front and rear wheels.
The amount was impossible to pass Shimano's inspection standards,
so it's simply runout that developed from riding.
↑The top edge of the rim is scuffed and scratched,
but there's no particular problem.
No need to adjust the brake shoe any lower.
All four wheels mentioned above
had matching center-to-flange offset deviations, as if by design.