Another day of wheels (and so on).
I built Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using the Shimano RS400 hub that I introduced the other day—a budget-grade hub that oddly enough comes in a 28-hole spec.
Silver/black CX-RAY with radial spoke lacing. There's a reason I haven't been doing radial lacing lately—when you tension radial-laced wheels high, the hub bearing can develop lateral play. The fix is to adjust the bearing preload, but with hubs where the dimension to the bearing seat is fixed (whether it's a press-fit or threaded spindle design), there's nothing you can do if play develops. With Tni evo hubs you can machine the axle to control play, but with evo-lite or leaf hubs it's structurally impossible.
So radial lacing is really only reliably possible with cup-and-cone hubs, and among current production models, Campagnolo hubs prohibit radial lacing (though I break that rule sometimes), and Chris King hubs have flange thickness and shape that aren't suited for radial, so I basically don't do it. So radial lacing is practically only possible with Shimano hubs. You could do it with other hubs if you're willing to gamble on whether play develops.
I went with silver hub × black rim. When you try to alternate spoke colors, one side ends up all one color, and the black spokes always seem heavier somehow, so I alternated spoke colors on just one side of the hub.
That way, across 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 wheel was delayed waiting for silver rims to arrive. The XR200 rim is called AL22 at Tni, but AL22 initially only came in black 32-hole. Then 20-hole and 24-hole were added later. Recently, silver 28-hole and 32-hole have been added. There's no black 28-hole in AL22. The XR200 I source does have it.
The opposite of the front wheel—I sourced the rim because I wanted to try black hub × silver rim. Silver/black half-competizione four-cross lacing. I'll do the Italian lacing later.
↑ I made the radial spokes silver and the crossed spokes black on both sides. When you do Italian lacing with this setup
Of the four-spoke bundle that spans the final crossing and its opposite, the two spokes toward the valve side come out silver (if you do JIS lacing, the middle two will be silver). I reversed the spoke and nipple colors here too.
Regardless of hub color, the quick-release is always black—that's the price-appropriate corner we cut.
I almost forgot to write something important: the RS400 rear hub supports 11-speed.
↑ Measured weight.
As for pricing (all prices include tax), if we assume all silver spokes and silver nipples, the front wheel comes to ¥16,960, the rear wheel ¥18,310, and both wheels together ¥35,270. When you compare this to complete wheel pricing, if complete wheels are more expensive, then (speaking candidly) it's shop laziness not to build hand-laced wheels. The rim weight is comparable to 9000 and RS81 C24 (maybe even slightly lighter), and the wheel stiffness is better here (Shimano wheels are soft so beating them is easy)—I'll add that as well.
This wheel is a practice build (so I'm assembling it on my days off), but I recently got a comment asking me to write about Tni's new "Star Hub." Hehehe, good question. If the distributor hadn't gone on New Year break, I would've built them tomorrow. I've ordered about five pairs of front and rear hubs, so I'll write about those early next year. The rear hub spoke length calculation is an annoying geometry, but once I get the correction factor, future calculations will be easy.
I built Nomu Lab Wheel #5 using the Shimano RS400 hub that I introduced the other day—a budget-grade hub that oddly enough comes in a 28-hole spec.
Silver/black CX-RAY with radial spoke lacing. There's a reason I haven't been doing radial lacing lately—when you tension radial-laced wheels high, the hub bearing can develop lateral play. The fix is to adjust the bearing preload, but with hubs where the dimension to the bearing seat is fixed (whether it's a press-fit or threaded spindle design), there's nothing you can do if play develops. With Tni evo hubs you can machine the axle to control play, but with evo-lite or leaf hubs it's structurally impossible.
So radial lacing is really only reliably possible with cup-and-cone hubs, and among current production models, Campagnolo hubs prohibit radial lacing (though I break that rule sometimes), and Chris King hubs have flange thickness and shape that aren't suited for radial, so I basically don't do it. So radial lacing is practically only possible with Shimano hubs. You could do it with other hubs if you're willing to gamble on whether play develops.
I went with silver hub × black rim. When you try to alternate spoke colors, one side ends up all one color, and the black spokes always seem heavier somehow, so I alternated spoke colors on just one side of the hub.
That way, across 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 wheel was delayed waiting for silver rims to arrive. The XR200 rim is called AL22 at Tni, but AL22 initially only came in black 32-hole. Then 20-hole and 24-hole were added later. Recently, silver 28-hole and 32-hole have been added. There's no black 28-hole in AL22. The XR200 I source does have it.
The opposite of the front wheel—I sourced the rim because I wanted to try black hub × silver rim. Silver/black half-competizione four-cross lacing. I'll do the Italian lacing later.
↑ I made the radial spokes silver and the crossed spokes black on both sides. When you do Italian lacing with this setup
Of the four-spoke bundle that spans the final crossing and its opposite, the two spokes toward the valve side come out silver (if you do JIS lacing, the middle two will be silver). I reversed the spoke and nipple colors here too.
Regardless of hub color, the quick-release is always black—that's the price-appropriate corner we cut.
I almost forgot to write something important: the RS400 rear hub supports 11-speed.
↑ Measured weight.
As for pricing (all prices include tax), if we assume all silver spokes and silver nipples, the front wheel comes to ¥16,960, the rear wheel ¥18,310, and both wheels together ¥35,270. When you compare this to complete wheel pricing, if complete wheels are more expensive, then (speaking candidly) it's shop laziness not to build hand-laced wheels. The rim weight is comparable to 9000 and RS81 C24 (maybe even slightly lighter), and the wheel stiffness is better here (Shimano wheels are soft so beating them is easy)—I'll add that as well.
This wheel is a practice build (so I'm assembling it on my days off), but I recently got a comment asking me to write about Tni's new "Star Hub." Hehehe, good question. If the distributor hadn't gone on New Year break, I would've built them tomorrow. I've ordered about five pairs of front and rear hubs, so I'll write about those early next year. The rear hub spoke length calculation is an annoying geometry, but once I get the correction factor, future calculations will be easy.