Another wheel day (and so on).
I built Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using a Shimano RS400 hub—a budget-grade hub that, oddly enough, comes in a 28H version.
Silver/black CX-RAY inpoke radial lacing.
There's actually a reason I haven't been doing inpoke radial lacing lately: when you tension inpoke radial spokes high, the hub's bearing cup sometimes develops lateral play. The fix is supposed to be adjusting the bearing cup, but on hubs where the distance to the endcap is fixed—whether it's a press-fit or threaded-cup design—there's nothing you can do if play develops. With Tni's Evo Hub you can machine the axle to control play, but with the Evo Lite Hub or Leaf Hub, it's structurally impossible.
So inpoke radial lacing is really only reliable on cup-and-cone hubs. Of the current models, Campagnolo hubs prohibit radial lacing (though I break that rule sometimes), and Chris King hubs have flange thickness and shape that don't work well for inpoke, so I generally don't do it. This means inpoke radial lacing is practically only possible with Shimano hubs. You *can* do it with other hubs if you're willing to gamble on whether play develops.
I went with a silver hub × black rim.
When trying to alternate spoke colors, one side ends up all the same color, and the black spokes somehow feel heavier, so I alternated spoke colors on just one side of the hub.
That way, combining both sides, the spoke color changes every two spokes.
Silver spokes get black nipples; black spokes get silver nipples.
I built the front wheel last week, but the rear was delayed waiting for the silver rim to arrive. The XR200 rim is called AL22 at Tni, but the AL22 initially came only as a 32H black rim. Later, 20H and 24H were added. And recently, silver 28H and 32H versions have been added. There's no black 28H AL22. But the XR200 I stock does have it.
For the opposite effect—black hub × silver rim—I had the rim ordered. Silver/black semi-comp 4-cross lacing. I'll do the Italian lacing later.
↑On both sides, the inpoke spokes are silver and the outpoke spokes are black. With Italian lacing done this way—
—among the four-spoke bundle at the final crossing and its opposite side, the two spokes pointing toward the porcupine are silver (with JIS lacing, the middle two would be silver). Here too, I reversed the spoke and nipple colors.
Regardless of hub color, the quick-release is black—that's the price-appropriate corner-cutting point.
I almost forgot to mention this important detail: the RS400 rear hub is 11-speed compatible.
↑Measured weight.
Price-wise (all including tax): if both wheels were all-silver spokes and nipples, the front would be ¥16,960, the rear ¥18,310, and the pair ¥35,270. When you compare that to complete wheel pricing, if complete wheels are more expensive, then (if I may be so bold) shops that don't hand-build are being lazy. The rim weight is comparable to the 9000 or RS81 C24 (even slightly lighter), and this wheel's stiffness is actually higher—Shimano wheels are pretty soft, so beating them is easy. I should add that too.
This wheel is a study piece (so I'm building it on days off), but I recently got a comment asking me to write about Tni's new "Star Hub." Ha, that's a good question. If the distributors hadn't gone on holiday break, I would've built some yesterday. I've already ordered about five pairs of front and rear hubs, so I'll do write-ups on those early next year. The rear hub spoke length calculation is annoying given the shape, but once I nail down the correction value, future calculations will be a breeze.
I built Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using a Shimano RS400 hub—a budget-grade hub that, oddly enough, comes in a 28H version.
Silver/black CX-RAY inpoke radial lacing.
There's actually a reason I haven't been doing inpoke radial lacing lately: when you tension inpoke radial spokes high, the hub's bearing cup sometimes develops lateral play. The fix is supposed to be adjusting the bearing cup, but on hubs where the distance to the endcap is fixed—whether it's a press-fit or threaded-cup design—there's nothing you can do if play develops. With Tni's Evo Hub you can machine the axle to control play, but with the Evo Lite Hub or Leaf Hub, it's structurally impossible.
So inpoke radial lacing is really only reliable on cup-and-cone hubs. Of the current models, Campagnolo hubs prohibit radial lacing (though I break that rule sometimes), and Chris King hubs have flange thickness and shape that don't work well for inpoke, so I generally don't do it. This means inpoke radial lacing is practically only possible with Shimano hubs. You *can* do it with other hubs if you're willing to gamble on whether play develops.
I went with a silver hub × black rim.
When trying to alternate spoke colors, one side ends up all the same color, and the black spokes somehow feel heavier, so I alternated spoke colors on just one side of the hub.
That way, combining both sides, the spoke color changes every two spokes.
Silver spokes get black nipples; black spokes get silver nipples.
I built the front wheel last week, but the rear was delayed waiting for the silver rim to arrive. The XR200 rim is called AL22 at Tni, but the AL22 initially came only as a 32H black rim. Later, 20H and 24H were added. And recently, silver 28H and 32H versions have been added. There's no black 28H AL22. But the XR200 I stock does have it.
For the opposite effect—black hub × silver rim—I had the rim ordered. Silver/black semi-comp 4-cross lacing. I'll do the Italian lacing later.
↑On both sides, the inpoke spokes are silver and the outpoke spokes are black. With Italian lacing done this way—
—among the four-spoke bundle at the final crossing and its opposite side, the two spokes pointing toward the porcupine are silver (with JIS lacing, the middle two would be silver). Here too, I reversed the spoke and nipple colors.
Regardless of hub color, the quick-release is black—that's the price-appropriate corner-cutting point.
I almost forgot to mention this important detail: the RS400 rear hub is 11-speed compatible.
↑Measured weight.
Price-wise (all including tax): if both wheels were all-silver spokes and nipples, the front would be ¥16,960, the rear ¥18,310, and the pair ¥35,270. When you compare that to complete wheel pricing, if complete wheels are more expensive, then (if I may be so bold) shops that don't hand-build are being lazy. The rim weight is comparable to the 9000 or RS81 C24 (even slightly lighter), and this wheel's stiffness is actually higher—Shimano wheels are pretty soft, so beating them is easy. I should add that too.
This wheel is a study piece (so I'm building it on days off), but I recently got a comment asking me to write about Tni's new "Star Hub." Ha, that's a good question. If the distributors hadn't gone on holiday break, I would've built some yesterday. I've already ordered about five pairs of front and rear hubs, so I'll do write-ups on those early next year. The rear hub spoke length calculation is annoying given the shape, but once I nail down the correction value, future calculations will be a breeze.