A customer brought in a 9000 C24 wheelset for service.
Starting with the rear wheel.
The customer felt it was a bit loose and wanted the spokes tensioned.
The spoke tension meets the factory standard, I'd say,
though it's not particularly loose.
No centering issues, minimal runout,
so it would've been fine as-is,
I tightened the freewheel side spokes as much as possible.
The rim shifted toward the freewheel side, creating centering issues,
which I then corrected by tightening the non-freewheel side spokes.
The fact that I could do this means there was still room for tightening,
despite it not being particularly loose.
As a result, it became considerably stiffer than a factory wheel,
but this just shows the limits of spoke selection and build method.
The hand-built C24 rim wheel I assembled recently is far stiffer than this,
the Nomu Lab wheel #5 rear wheel (24H) is even stiffer than that,
Nomu Lab wheel #1 is slightly stiffer still,
and Racing Zero is in an entirely different league.
Compared to Racing Zero, we're talking small difference, but
when you exclude complete aluminum-spoke wheels,
that small difference becomes quite significant.
Today's work was more like moving from barely adequate to slightly better.
The customer wanted a hub overhaul, so I did one.
Before disassembly, I didn't think it was necessary,
but there was quite a bit of grease loss, so cleaning and regreasing was worthwhile.
Now for the front wheel.
This one was already quite tight—I could barely tighten it further.
Pre-service condition: no centering issues, virtually no runout.
Both wheels feel like they received proper quality control,
though it's possible we just drew exceptionally good factory wheels.
But the former seems more likely.
The front hub internals showed no damage.
There was a slight amount of lateral play,
so I took that out before truing work.
Starting with the rear wheel.
The customer felt it was a bit loose and wanted the spokes tensioned.
The spoke tension meets the factory standard, I'd say,
though it's not particularly loose.
No centering issues, minimal runout,
so it would've been fine as-is,
I tightened the freewheel side spokes as much as possible.
The rim shifted toward the freewheel side, creating centering issues,
which I then corrected by tightening the non-freewheel side spokes.
The fact that I could do this means there was still room for tightening,
despite it not being particularly loose.
As a result, it became considerably stiffer than a factory wheel,
but this just shows the limits of spoke selection and build method.
The hand-built C24 rim wheel I assembled recently is far stiffer than this,
the Nomu Lab wheel #5 rear wheel (24H) is even stiffer than that,
Nomu Lab wheel #1 is slightly stiffer still,
and Racing Zero is in an entirely different league.
Compared to Racing Zero, we're talking small difference, but
when you exclude complete aluminum-spoke wheels,
that small difference becomes quite significant.
Today's work was more like moving from barely adequate to slightly better.
The customer wanted a hub overhaul, so I did one.
Before disassembly, I didn't think it was necessary,
but there was quite a bit of grease loss, so cleaning and regreasing was worthwhile.
Now for the front wheel.
This one was already quite tight—I could barely tighten it further.
Pre-service condition: no centering issues, virtually no runout.
Both wheels feel like they received proper quality control,
though it's possible we just drew exceptionally good factory wheels.
But the former seems more likely.
The front hub internals showed no damage.
There was a slight amount of lateral play,
so I took that out before truing work.