Another day with wheels (and so on).
A customer left me a front wheel from a first-generation Shamal Ultra (colloquially known as the "gold Shamal") for work.
As you can already see from this photo,
the rim is crushed beyond repair, so it needs replacement.
The gold rim is already discontinued as a spare part, but I deliberately went ahead and looked up the old part number and ordered a gold rim anyway.
As expected, I was told it was discontinued and that a black rim could be used instead, but there's a reason for this exchange of words.
By getting them to agree that a black rim is acceptable, I've created a record of their approval.
This next part is unrelated to this matter, but around eight years ago, when I took on a rim replacement for a Cosmic Carbone SSC (Campagnolo carbon wheelset) 20H rear wheel—the original had 16H rear, so this was the second generation—the Cosmic Carbone SL had already been released, and both rim types were available.
The SSC rim has dual eyelets with no drilling between spoke holes, while the SL has a single eyelet with drilling between the holes.
However, since the internal rim diameter is the same, it should be possible to use the SSC hub and spokes to build a wheel with an SL rim.
The spoke length differs between SSC and SL, but that's only because the hub shape is different; if you match the hub and spokes together as a set—for example, both SSC—then since the rim internal diameter is the same, there's no reason the wheel shouldn't go together.
To nitpick further, the SSC spokes have a wider flange, so the holes drilled in the rim are wider, but I've already confirmed that even with just the rim as SL and everything else as SSC, it barely works.
So back then, I asked the distributor whether it was okay to handle an SSC rim replacement with an SL rim, and they said it had no compatibility and it wasn't possible.
I said the rim internal diameter is the same so it should assemble, but they just kept insisting there was no compatibility, period.
I wouldn't have thought much more of it at that point, but then the following year, the SSC spare rim was discontinued, and the distributor issued an official announcement saying "handle SSC rim replacements with the SL from now on."
I thought, "Wait, you just told me last year that wasn't okay—what are you doing?"—but I suppose that's just how it goes.
So back to this current situation: if I had quietly handled the gold rim repair with a black rim on my own, there's a chance I'd get back some narrow-minded official response like "only use a gold rim for gold rims, regardless of whether a black rim actually fits; we don't accept that kind of substitution; if the gold rim gets crushed, give up and buy a new one."
And to be honest, for a front wheel, I could definitely repair it with a Racing Zero rim, but officially I certainly can't get approval for that.
So the significance of this exchange—ordering a gold rim, being told I can use a black rim instead—is that I've obtained explicit approval for the substitution.
I'm grateful for their flexible approach.
※Come to think of it, I don't think the closing phrase was actually what I wrote.
When doing spoke replacements or wheel rebuilds on Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero wheels, we sometimes reuse the nipples, but these gray anodized nipples have a tendency—like certain Campagnolo BB cups from a particular era—to develop surface rust that peels off like sunburned skin.
So this time I'm replacing all of them with the current aluminum-colored nipples.
I say "current," but apparently from 2017 onward they're switching back to gray nipples, so soon these won't be "current" anymore.
I don't know if the new gray will be the same color as the old gray.
Since the C17 went to a wider rim, the nipple shape seems different too, so even if the surface treatment were the same, it wouldn't be the same as before.
I was able to disassemble all the spokes without creating any twists.
Of course I'm reusing them.
The customer said that even if there were any bends in the spokes in the area where the rim is crushed, resulting in spokes of slightly different colors—a kind of mismatched look—that would be fine, maybe even cool, and to just contact him if an unusually large number needed replacement.
Unfortunately, they all turned out to be fine.
I also have a few spare spokes on hand.
It's built.
Because it's an unfamiliar combination, it looks pretty cool.
By the way, for this job the customer wanted to apply a Dark Label decal, and I ordered and received both Dark and Bright labels for a separate repair.
Applying these stickers is easier when done on the bare rim rather than after building into a wheel, but I didn't do it for a reason.
These decals are split into four pieces—"SHAMAL," "ULTRA," "CAMPA," and "GNOLO"—presumably to make them easier to apply without messing up, since longer stickers tend to be trickier.
But since Shamal Ultra has different rim heights front and rear, the decals are further divided into a narrower front version and a wider rear version.
↑SHAMAL F×2 R×2
↑ULTRA F×2 R×2
↑CAMPA F×2 R×2
↑GNOLO R×4
So that's why Gnolo—only the rear version—arrived in a quantity of four.
Oh no, this is a subtle attack that really gets to me. Please stop.
I'm fine with mixing in partially used sheets as long as the count works out.
This has happened before in similar orders, and since there's nothing wrong with the decals themselves, it's no problem.
If it were four front versions, I could live with that too.
This situation doesn't actually cause me any trouble.
For these decals, I split the price between front and rear and sell them separately.
For example, I could demand that if the customer orders a front-and-rear set, they buy the unnecessary ones too, and some shops actually do this.
But my philosophy is that it feels wrong to have the shop force customers to buy parts they might never use just because of the distributor's packaging system.
I had planned to write about this with examples of a certain terrible shop, but since I've touched on it here, that doesn't mean I won't bring it up again later. Probably.
Anyway, I looked up the other half of the unused decals from before, but the Dark Label front version turned out to be out of stock.
Help me, somehow.
A customer left me a front wheel from a first-generation Shamal Ultra (colloquially known as the "gold Shamal") for work.
As you can already see from this photo,
the rim is crushed beyond repair, so it needs replacement.
The gold rim is already discontinued as a spare part, but I deliberately went ahead and looked up the old part number and ordered a gold rim anyway.
As expected, I was told it was discontinued and that a black rim could be used instead, but there's a reason for this exchange of words.
By getting them to agree that a black rim is acceptable, I've created a record of their approval.
This next part is unrelated to this matter, but around eight years ago, when I took on a rim replacement for a Cosmic Carbone SSC (Campagnolo carbon wheelset) 20H rear wheel—the original had 16H rear, so this was the second generation—the Cosmic Carbone SL had already been released, and both rim types were available.
The SSC rim has dual eyelets with no drilling between spoke holes, while the SL has a single eyelet with drilling between the holes.
However, since the internal rim diameter is the same, it should be possible to use the SSC hub and spokes to build a wheel with an SL rim.
The spoke length differs between SSC and SL, but that's only because the hub shape is different; if you match the hub and spokes together as a set—for example, both SSC—then since the rim internal diameter is the same, there's no reason the wheel shouldn't go together.
To nitpick further, the SSC spokes have a wider flange, so the holes drilled in the rim are wider, but I've already confirmed that even with just the rim as SL and everything else as SSC, it barely works.
So back then, I asked the distributor whether it was okay to handle an SSC rim replacement with an SL rim, and they said it had no compatibility and it wasn't possible.
I said the rim internal diameter is the same so it should assemble, but they just kept insisting there was no compatibility, period.
I wouldn't have thought much more of it at that point, but then the following year, the SSC spare rim was discontinued, and the distributor issued an official announcement saying "handle SSC rim replacements with the SL from now on."
I thought, "Wait, you just told me last year that wasn't okay—what are you doing?"—but I suppose that's just how it goes.
So back to this current situation: if I had quietly handled the gold rim repair with a black rim on my own, there's a chance I'd get back some narrow-minded official response like "only use a gold rim for gold rims, regardless of whether a black rim actually fits; we don't accept that kind of substitution; if the gold rim gets crushed, give up and buy a new one."
So the significance of this exchange—ordering a gold rim, being told I can use a black rim instead—is that I've obtained explicit approval for the substitution.
I'm grateful for their flexible approach.
※Come to think of it, I don't think the closing phrase was actually what I wrote.
When doing spoke replacements or wheel rebuilds on Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero wheels, we sometimes reuse the nipples, but these gray anodized nipples have a tendency—like certain Campagnolo BB cups from a particular era—to develop surface rust that peels off like sunburned skin.
So this time I'm replacing all of them with the current aluminum-colored nipples.
I say "current," but apparently from 2017 onward they're switching back to gray nipples, so soon these won't be "current" anymore.
I don't know if the new gray will be the same color as the old gray.
Since the C17 went to a wider rim, the nipple shape seems different too, so even if the surface treatment were the same, it wouldn't be the same as before.
I was able to disassemble all the spokes without creating any twists.
Of course I'm reusing them.
The customer said that even if there were any bends in the spokes in the area where the rim is crushed, resulting in spokes of slightly different colors—a kind of mismatched look—that would be fine, maybe even cool, and to just contact him if an unusually large number needed replacement.
Unfortunately, they all turned out to be fine.
I also have a few spare spokes on hand.
It's built.
Because it's an unfamiliar combination, it looks pretty cool.
By the way, for this job the customer wanted to apply a Dark Label decal, and I ordered and received both Dark and Bright labels for a separate repair.
Applying these stickers is easier when done on the bare rim rather than after building into a wheel, but I didn't do it for a reason.
These decals are split into four pieces—"SHAMAL," "ULTRA," "CAMPA," and "GNOLO"—presumably to make them easier to apply without messing up, since longer stickers tend to be trickier.
But since Shamal Ultra has different rim heights front and rear, the decals are further divided into a narrower front version and a wider rear version.
↑SHAMAL F×2 R×2
↑ULTRA F×2 R×2
↑CAMPA F×2 R×2
↑GNOLO R×4
So that's why Gnolo—only the rear version—arrived in a quantity of four.
Oh no, this is a subtle attack that really gets to me. Please stop.
I'm fine with mixing in partially used sheets as long as the count works out.
This has happened before in similar orders, and since there's nothing wrong with the decals themselves, it's no problem.
If it were four front versions, I could live with that too.
This situation doesn't actually cause me any trouble.
For these decals, I split the price between front and rear and sell them separately.
For example, I could demand that if the customer orders a front-and-rear set, they buy the unnecessary ones too, and some shops actually do this.
But my philosophy is that it feels wrong to have the shop force customers to buy parts they might never use just because of the distributor's packaging system.
I had planned to write about this with examples of a certain terrible shop, but since I've touched on it here, that doesn't mean I won't bring it up again later. Probably.
Anyway, I looked up the other half of the unused decals from before, but the Dark Label front version turned out to be out of stock.
Help me, somehow.