Another day working on wheels (and so on).
I built the front wheel for Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5.
Black hub 20H, black CX-RAY, reverse radial lacing.
Moving on to a different matter. I took in a Aksium Race from a customer.
The rim's bead hook has some deformation from buckling,
and aside from that there's no significant rim trueing issues,
but since the brake feel is affected, we decided to replace the rim.
(I tried hard to fix the bead hook deformation, but couldn't straighten it.)
This rim has an inner diameter close to the XR200,
so we can do a "rim swap" style replacement.
Since the spoke's plain section on the threaded end is quite long,
we can even cut it shorter if needed.
So it's fine even if the new rim has a slightly smaller inner diameter.
I disassembled it.
I put the rim on a glass surface plate, and as expected, it has virtually no bend.
You can see a spoke passing through a nipple in the photo,
and that nipple is a DT 12mm.
The spoke's thread length is quite long.
This is designed to match a special extra-long brass nipple.
Cosmic Carbon spokes are like this too,
but those have a 13-gauge plain section, while these are 14-gauge.
So you can use standard universal nipples with them.
When cutting these spokes, as long as the thread length becomes the same as what standard nipples require,
the effective length relative to standard nipples doesn't change.
I normally calculate spoke length so that the spoke and nipple ends are flush,
but if I do that with these spokes and standard 12mm nipples,
↑the thread protrudes slightly from the nipple.
In the original Aksium assembly,
the spoke protruded a bit from the thread.
(With Cosmic Carbon, it's quite clearly sticking out.)
If you don't obsess over the flush appearance and instead consider the "proper length" as something like
using the spoke's threads fully and being about 3 threads back from bottoming out in the nipple hole,
then having the spoke appear to stick out excessively from the nipple is not a problem.
Like the Kashirium (carbon tube hub shell) front hub,
the flange isn't fixed to the hub body,
so it spins freely without spoke tension.
I'm writing what I always write, but
as long as the spoke count matches, it adapts seamlessly to pair-spoke rims.
So from this state,
you can freely choose the phase of the hub body visible through the valve hole.
Finished building it.
The rim weight difference is 90g, and the nipple weight difference is at least 10g,
so we've achieved over 100g of weight savings in the outer periphery.
The fact that the thread isn't visible protruding from the nipple when fully built means
it's protruding on this side instead.
If the thread length of these spokes were the same as standard spokes,
it would likely end up flush,
so the spoke length relative to the rim diameter is correct.
I could have cut the spokes if I wanted to,
but this time I used them unmodified.
I built the front wheel for Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5.
Black hub 20H, black CX-RAY, reverse radial lacing.
Moving on to a different matter. I took in a Aksium Race from a customer.
The rim's bead hook has some deformation from buckling,
and aside from that there's no significant rim trueing issues,
but since the brake feel is affected, we decided to replace the rim.
(I tried hard to fix the bead hook deformation, but couldn't straighten it.)
This rim has an inner diameter close to the XR200,
so we can do a "rim swap" style replacement.
Since the spoke's plain section on the threaded end is quite long,
we can even cut it shorter if needed.
So it's fine even if the new rim has a slightly smaller inner diameter.
I disassembled it.
I put the rim on a glass surface plate, and as expected, it has virtually no bend.
You can see a spoke passing through a nipple in the photo,
and that nipple is a DT 12mm.
The spoke's thread length is quite long.
This is designed to match a special extra-long brass nipple.
Cosmic Carbon spokes are like this too,
but those have a 13-gauge plain section, while these are 14-gauge.
So you can use standard universal nipples with them.
When cutting these spokes, as long as the thread length becomes the same as what standard nipples require,
the effective length relative to standard nipples doesn't change.
I normally calculate spoke length so that the spoke and nipple ends are flush,
but if I do that with these spokes and standard 12mm nipples,
↑the thread protrudes slightly from the nipple.
In the original Aksium assembly,
the spoke protruded a bit from the thread.
(With Cosmic Carbon, it's quite clearly sticking out.)
If you don't obsess over the flush appearance and instead consider the "proper length" as something like
using the spoke's threads fully and being about 3 threads back from bottoming out in the nipple hole,
then having the spoke appear to stick out excessively from the nipple is not a problem.
Like the Kashirium (carbon tube hub shell) front hub,
the flange isn't fixed to the hub body,
so it spins freely without spoke tension.
I'm writing what I always write, but
as long as the spoke count matches, it adapts seamlessly to pair-spoke rims.
So from this state,
you can freely choose the phase of the hub body visible through the valve hole.
Finished building it.
The rim weight difference is 90g, and the nipple weight difference is at least 10g,
so we've achieved over 100g of weight savings in the outer periphery.
The fact that the thread isn't visible protruding from the nipple when fully built means
it's protruding on this side instead.
If the thread length of these spokes were the same as standard spokes,
it would likely end up flush,
so the spoke length relative to the rim diameter is correct.
I could have cut the spokes if I wanted to,
but this time I used them unmodified.