Another day, another wheel (and so on).
A customer brought in a wheel built with a Gokiso hub and
XR200 rim.
We didn't initially plan on rebuilding it,
but since it would be better than the current state,
we decided to go ahead with it.
24H black CX-RAY 4-cross Italian lacing.
The freewheel side is tensioned all the way to the limit—
even I would question tensioning it this much.
But that's the key point here.
I've seen plenty of wheels built by amateurs and even other professionals
with semi-comp 4-cross lacing or soldered spoke ends,
but most of them don't tension the freewheel-side spokes sufficiently,
even knowing the rim's limits.
The key insight is that under the condition of "freewheel-side tension at the rim's limit (with room for adjustment),"
wheels with asymmetrical flanges, different spoke counts, or soldered connections
become stiffer than wheels without these features.
Building a loose semi-comp 4-cross wheel and then being disappointed
that it's not as stiff as expected—
well, that's just how it goes.
This rear hub has narrow flanges with minimal flange offset,
so the spoke tension difference between left and right is smaller
than in most rear hubs.
The reason the non-freewheel side is tensioned more goes beyond that—
to be specific,
the rim is actually offset toward the non-freewheel side.
Since the freewheel side is at the limit, any truing adjustment
would mean loosening the non-freewheel side,
which would increase the spoke tension difference from the current state.
I rebuilt it.
Black semi-comp 4-cross with soldered spoke ends.
Also, at the customer's request, I changed the aluminum nipples from red to silver.
Looking at the brake zone on the rim,
it's basically brand new (hardly ridden),
so the fact that they went to the trouble of bringing it in to our shop
means... well, never mind.
For the front wheel,
I rebuilt it solely to change the nipple color.
The original wheels were built with the valve hole rotated 180° from the phase
where you can see the Gokiso logo through it.
This is the same as Shimano complete wheels.
Of course it has no bearing on performance,
but I'm the type who prefers to see the logo through the valve hole,
so I made that change.
By my standards, the spoke length is slightly short,
but it didn't seem worth getting new spokes just to add 1mm,
so I reused the original spokes.
The rear wheel spoke length was appropriate, and since
the domestic distributor's CX-RAY comes in 2mm increments for even numbers,
and I don't have a spoke cutter,
it's likely they used even-mm lengths as-is.
The hub flanges
have this raised-root-pine appearance and don't pull directly below the bearing.
Statically speaking, spoke tension shouldn't change the bearing preload,
and dynamically speaking, deflection during hard pedaling should transmit less force to the bearings.
A customer brought in a wheel built with a Gokiso hub and
XR200 rim.
We didn't initially plan on rebuilding it,
but since it would be better than the current state,
we decided to go ahead with it.
24H black CX-RAY 4-cross Italian lacing.
The freewheel side is tensioned all the way to the limit—
even I would question tensioning it this much.
But that's the key point here.
I've seen plenty of wheels built by amateurs and even other professionals
with semi-comp 4-cross lacing or soldered spoke ends,
but most of them don't tension the freewheel-side spokes sufficiently,
even knowing the rim's limits.
The key insight is that under the condition of "freewheel-side tension at the rim's limit (with room for adjustment),"
wheels with asymmetrical flanges, different spoke counts, or soldered connections
become stiffer than wheels without these features.
Building a loose semi-comp 4-cross wheel and then being disappointed
that it's not as stiff as expected—
well, that's just how it goes.
This rear hub has narrow flanges with minimal flange offset,
so the spoke tension difference between left and right is smaller
than in most rear hubs.
The reason the non-freewheel side is tensioned more goes beyond that—
to be specific,
the rim is actually offset toward the non-freewheel side.
Since the freewheel side is at the limit, any truing adjustment
would mean loosening the non-freewheel side,
which would increase the spoke tension difference from the current state.
I rebuilt it.
Black semi-comp 4-cross with soldered spoke ends.
Also, at the customer's request, I changed the aluminum nipples from red to silver.
Looking at the brake zone on the rim,
it's basically brand new (hardly ridden),
so the fact that they went to the trouble of bringing it in to our shop
means... well, never mind.
For the front wheel,
I rebuilt it solely to change the nipple color.
The original wheels were built with the valve hole rotated 180° from the phase
where you can see the Gokiso logo through it.
This is the same as Shimano complete wheels.
Of course it has no bearing on performance,
but I'm the type who prefers to see the logo through the valve hole,
so I made that change.
By my standards, the spoke length is slightly short,
but it didn't seem worth getting new spokes just to add 1mm,
so I reused the original spokes.
The rear wheel spoke length was appropriate, and since
the domestic distributor's CX-RAY comes in 2mm increments for even numbers,
and I don't have a spoke cutter,
it's likely they used even-mm lengths as-is.
The hub flanges
have this raised-root-pine appearance and don't pull directly below the bearing.
Statically speaking, spoke tension shouldn't change the bearing preload,
and dynamically speaking, deflection during hard pedaling should transmit less force to the bearings.