Another day of wheel building (and so on).
I built a front wheel with a 16-hole carbon rim.
The hub is HB-7700, the spokes are CX, and it's laced in reverse radial pattern.
Since the spokes are CX,
the flange holes have slots.
The HB-7700 comes with round holes for 36, 32, 28, and 24 holes, and aero slot holes for 32, 28, 24, 18, 16, and 12 holes.
But for some reason, Shimano front hubs have traditionally never offered 20 holes.
This continues all the way through to the 7800, 7900, and 9000 series, but honestly, 20-hole seems like it would have more demand than 18-hole for hand-built wheels.
If we could get front 20H + rear 24H with the 7900 or 9000 series,
there would have been plenty of opportunities to use them with ENVE and nomunlab wheels.
Instead of the sluggish rotation, you'd have something that feels more robust—
that's the kind of situation where you'd compare it with a Chris King hub.
And there's another thing.
The HB-7700 is actually not supposed to be laced radially.
The first Shimano hub that allowed radial lacing was
the HB-5500 front hub for 105 from the 7700 series era,
its successor the HB-5501,
and the minor revision "HB-5501A".
For 16 holes with tangential lacing,
your options are basically all reverse spoking (or all forward spoking) with 2-cross final weave, or
reverse and forward mixed without crossing patterns (or rather, unable to cross) in 2-cross—
and if you're going to do that anyway, radial lacing is at least somewhat healthier. So I went with radial.
18-hole front hubs existed in the 7400 Dura-Ace and
lower-tier 6400 series 600 Ultegra,
but naturally these also forbid radial lacing.
However, if you're going to do X1 lacing, radial lacing actually reduces trouble—
spoke loosening becomes much less likely, and all sorts of problems diminish.
Besides, even X1 lacing has one in every three spokes as radial anyway.
Telling people not to radially lace an 18-hole hub is about as unreasonable as that famous Zen koan—it's completely absurd.
The rear rim I'm planning to build next is also 16-hole, but
the front rim is marked "this side is right,"
and the rear rim is marked "this side is freewheel side."
I'm skeptical whether they're actually made differently in hole positioning and offset,
but I'll follow the instructions anyway.
It's a wide WO rim.
From the feel of it, it's not particularly light, but that actually gives me more confidence.
I built a front wheel with a 16-hole carbon rim.
The hub is HB-7700, the spokes are CX, and it's laced in reverse radial pattern.
Since the spokes are CX,
the flange holes have slots.
The HB-7700 comes with round holes for 36, 32, 28, and 24 holes, and aero slot holes for 32, 28, 24, 18, 16, and 12 holes.
But for some reason, Shimano front hubs have traditionally never offered 20 holes.
This continues all the way through to the 7800, 7900, and 9000 series, but honestly, 20-hole seems like it would have more demand than 18-hole for hand-built wheels.
If we could get front 20H + rear 24H with the 7900 or 9000 series,
there would have been plenty of opportunities to use them with ENVE and nomunlab wheels.
Instead of the sluggish rotation, you'd have something that feels more robust—
that's the kind of situation where you'd compare it with a Chris King hub.
And there's another thing.
The HB-7700 is actually not supposed to be laced radially.
The first Shimano hub that allowed radial lacing was
the HB-5500 front hub for 105 from the 7700 series era,
its successor the HB-5501,
and the minor revision "HB-5501A".
For 16 holes with tangential lacing,
your options are basically all reverse spoking (or all forward spoking) with 2-cross final weave, or
reverse and forward mixed without crossing patterns (or rather, unable to cross) in 2-cross—
and if you're going to do that anyway, radial lacing is at least somewhat healthier. So I went with radial.
18-hole front hubs existed in the 7400 Dura-Ace and
lower-tier 6400 series 600 Ultegra,
but naturally these also forbid radial lacing.
However, if you're going to do X1 lacing, radial lacing actually reduces trouble—
spoke loosening becomes much less likely, and all sorts of problems diminish.
Besides, even X1 lacing has one in every three spokes as radial anyway.
Telling people not to radially lace an 18-hole hub is about as unreasonable as that famous Zen koan—it's completely absurd.
The rear rim I'm planning to build next is also 16-hole, but
the front rim is marked "this side is right,"
and the rear rim is marked "this side is freewheel side."
I'm skeptical whether they're actually made differently in hole positioning and offset,
but I'll follow the instructions anyway.
It's a wide WO rim.
From the feel of it, it's not particularly light, but that actually gives me more confidence.