A customer brought in a Ksyrium SLR for service.
They rode it in, but I only did a full inspection on the rear wheel.
They hadn't done anything special to the front wheel,
but it was one of those that came from the factory with spoke tension on the higher end,
and it was quite taut.
The rear wheel, though, is pretty sloppy.
Actually, when you pedal from the left dead center,
brake rub occurs on the right side of the rim.
With most wheels—or really, with nearly every wheel except R-SYS—
brake rub always happens on the left side of the rim,
but R-SYS rubs on the right side.
Maybe it's because the spokes on the non-driveside are essentially almost completely rigid.
Fortunately (?) the rim had shifted toward the non-driveside.
Just tightening the driveside spokes until the wheel centered seemed insufficient,
so I removed the torque compensation ring and tensioned both sides firmly.
But brake rub still occurred.
I test-rode it myself to confirm.
The customer's bike uses SRAM Force brakes,
and the clearance between rim and pad was even on both sides and not overly tight.
If anything, the lever feel was pretty slack.
When I opened up the brake clearance so much that the brake barely functioned,
no amount of standing and pedaling caused rub.
So it really is the wheel flexing laterally.
(Frame rear triangle stiffness is involved too, I'm sure,
but that's not something I can adjust.)
When you push off from a standstill starting from the left dead center,
you hear a quick "click" from the brake.
It's that distinctive Exalith sound, so there's no mistaking it.
When pedaling from the right dead center, there was no left-side rub.
So I removed the torque compensation ring again,
loosened the non-driveside spokes, and tensioned the driveside as much as possible.
At that point, the rim center had shifted about half its width toward the driveside,
which I showed to the customer.
Then I centered it back up by tightening the non-driveside.
I did the maximum adjustment possible on the wheel side,
and the result is that rub is now "almost" gone.
If I test-ride and pedal as unnaturally hard as I can in the lateral direction to try to induce right-side rub,
it barely touches.
But within the customer's normal riding range,
the rub has disappeared,
so we're going to monitor it for now.
The rub has definitely reduced dramatically,
but it's not the case that it never rubs under any circumstances.
It's just that I can't tension it any more than this either (aside from minor lateral truing).
Since they'd never had it serviced before, the rubber seal inside the freewheel body was still properly in place.
They rode it in, but I only did a full inspection on the rear wheel.
They hadn't done anything special to the front wheel,
but it was one of those that came from the factory with spoke tension on the higher end,
and it was quite taut.
The rear wheel, though, is pretty sloppy.
Actually, when you pedal from the left dead center,
brake rub occurs on the right side of the rim.
With most wheels—or really, with nearly every wheel except R-SYS—
brake rub always happens on the left side of the rim,
but R-SYS rubs on the right side.
Maybe it's because the spokes on the non-driveside are essentially almost completely rigid.
Fortunately (?) the rim had shifted toward the non-driveside.
Just tightening the driveside spokes until the wheel centered seemed insufficient,
so I removed the torque compensation ring and tensioned both sides firmly.
But brake rub still occurred.
I test-rode it myself to confirm.
The customer's bike uses SRAM Force brakes,
and the clearance between rim and pad was even on both sides and not overly tight.
If anything, the lever feel was pretty slack.
When I opened up the brake clearance so much that the brake barely functioned,
no amount of standing and pedaling caused rub.
So it really is the wheel flexing laterally.
(Frame rear triangle stiffness is involved too, I'm sure,
but that's not something I can adjust.)
When you push off from a standstill starting from the left dead center,
you hear a quick "click" from the brake.
It's that distinctive Exalith sound, so there's no mistaking it.
When pedaling from the right dead center, there was no left-side rub.
So I removed the torque compensation ring again,
loosened the non-driveside spokes, and tensioned the driveside as much as possible.
At that point, the rim center had shifted about half its width toward the driveside,
which I showed to the customer.
Then I centered it back up by tightening the non-driveside.
I did the maximum adjustment possible on the wheel side,
and the result is that rub is now "almost" gone.
If I test-ride and pedal as unnaturally hard as I can in the lateral direction to try to induce right-side rub,
it barely touches.
But within the customer's normal riding range,
the rub has disappeared,
so we're going to monitor it for now.
The rub has definitely reduced dramatically,
but it's not the case that it never rubs under any circumstances.
It's just that I can't tension it any more than this either (aside from minor lateral truing).
Since they'd never had it serviced before, the rubber seal inside the freewheel body was still properly in place.