Another day of wheels (and so on).
A customer brought in an Aeolos 3 carbon wheel for me to work on.
Ever since they bought it, they've never thought it was "good" — it wobbles on descents,
during hill climbs, even setting aside sitting position,
the moment they stand up and pedal it flexes noticeably,
they asked Trek shop to tighten it up but it didn't make much difference,
and all sorts of other negative impressions keep coming out of the customer's mouth.
This customer is actually a pretty strong hill climber
with real racing wins and podium finishes under their belt,
so these aren't just idle complaints.
I tend to make judgments about wheel performance and characteristics
from a theoretical standpoint — like
"The rear hub's non-freewheel-side flange is positioned too inward
so the flange width is narrow, which means..." or
"It's radial-spoking on the non-freewheel side, so..." that kind of thing.
But feedback from someone without that kind of technical knowledge or preconceptions,
judging purely on how it actually performs in use—
I find that kind of straightforward assessment actually more trustworthy
than all the theory-spinning. Feedback like "I don't know the technical reasons, but it felt good (or bad)"—
maybe it's crude to say it this way, but I call that kind of assessment "gorilla feedback."
The customer's earlier comment about how on Awaji Island
Mavic Aksium wheels roll better than Gios wheels is one example of that.
In the case of the Cosmic Carbone 40 where we recently swapped out the freewheel-side spokes for thicker ones,
the customer who brought it in had been poisoned by "the Nomu Lab wheel philosophy"
and was talking about spoke specific gravity and all that,
so while they mentioned it felt numb when riding,
that wasn't pure "gorilla feedback."
As for the wheel before rebuilding,
the shop did tighten it up later, but honestly there was still plenty of room.
Especially the non-freewheel side was pretty sloppy.
But even if I cranked the freewheel side tension up to the limit and got the wheel centered
to that point of "tension dead-end," I doubt it would be much different from how it is now,
so we decided to rebuild it with a new hub.
The nipples and under-head washers are good quality, so I'm reusing those.
All built up.
Reef hub, 24H, semi-comp 46-spoke lacing with welding.
This customer also has a Nomu Lab wheel,
and the rebuilt Aeolos 3 rides noticeably numb compared to that,
so they asked if there was anything we could do about it.
Before the welding, we had them feel the spoke tension (how little flex there is)
and then we did the solder joint welding.
Even without riding it yet, they were saying it's transformed, it's completely different, wow,
but technically speaking, it's just that the rim portion is now
that of Nomu Lab but with Aeolos 3.
By the way, about the rim's weight as a bare unit—
the customer thought it was 330g based on something they'd read somewhere.
I can't tell you what it actually turned out to be.
It would be fine to tell just this customer,
but I don't want people thinking they can figure that out
just by scrolling through a browser page. ←ugh this guy has a bad attitude
Sorry for the wait!
Please take a look at this image!
↑Stop it!
A customer brought in an Aeolos 3 carbon wheel for me to work on.
Ever since they bought it, they've never thought it was "good" — it wobbles on descents,
during hill climbs, even setting aside sitting position,
the moment they stand up and pedal it flexes noticeably,
they asked Trek shop to tighten it up but it didn't make much difference,
and all sorts of other negative impressions keep coming out of the customer's mouth.
This customer is actually a pretty strong hill climber
with real racing wins and podium finishes under their belt,
so these aren't just idle complaints.
I tend to make judgments about wheel performance and characteristics
from a theoretical standpoint — like
"The rear hub's non-freewheel-side flange is positioned too inward
so the flange width is narrow, which means..." or
"It's radial-spoking on the non-freewheel side, so..." that kind of thing.
But feedback from someone without that kind of technical knowledge or preconceptions,
judging purely on how it actually performs in use—
I find that kind of straightforward assessment actually more trustworthy
than all the theory-spinning. Feedback like "I don't know the technical reasons, but it felt good (or bad)"—
maybe it's crude to say it this way, but I call that kind of assessment "gorilla feedback."
The customer's earlier comment about how on Awaji Island
Mavic Aksium wheels roll better than Gios wheels is one example of that.
In the case of the Cosmic Carbone 40 where we recently swapped out the freewheel-side spokes for thicker ones,
the customer who brought it in had been poisoned by "the Nomu Lab wheel philosophy"
and was talking about spoke specific gravity and all that,
so while they mentioned it felt numb when riding,
that wasn't pure "gorilla feedback."
As for the wheel before rebuilding,
the shop did tighten it up later, but honestly there was still plenty of room.
Especially the non-freewheel side was pretty sloppy.
But even if I cranked the freewheel side tension up to the limit and got the wheel centered
to that point of "tension dead-end," I doubt it would be much different from how it is now,
so we decided to rebuild it with a new hub.
The nipples and under-head washers are good quality, so I'm reusing those.
All built up.
Reef hub, 24H, semi-comp 46-spoke lacing with welding.
This customer also has a Nomu Lab wheel,
and the rebuilt Aeolos 3 rides noticeably numb compared to that,
so they asked if there was anything we could do about it.
Before the welding, we had them feel the spoke tension (how little flex there is)
and then we did the solder joint welding.
Even without riding it yet, they were saying it's transformed, it's completely different, wow,
but technically speaking, it's just that the rim portion is now
that of Nomu Lab but with Aeolos 3.
By the way, about the rim's weight as a bare unit—
the customer thought it was 330g based on something they'd read somewhere.
I can't tell you what it actually turned out to be.
It would be fine to tell just this customer,
but I don't want people thinking they can figure that out
just by scrolling through a browser page. ←ugh this guy has a bad attitude
Sorry for the wait!
Please take a look at this image!
↑Stop it!