A customer brought in a Cosmic Carbon (Mavic wheel) for service.
I heard quite a story about the hardships it's been through at two different shops (I didn't ask which ones).
The customer said it's okay to write about it since the people involved would recognize themselves anyway.
At the first shop, right in front of the customer,
the carbon portion of the rim got cracked during service work
(I still don't understand how that even happens).
When they installed a spare rim as a replacement,
it was assembled left and right reversed,
but the junior staff member who did the work absolutely refused to acknowledge it,
and management wouldn't listen either, so
a different shop stepped in saying "Leave it to us!" and reassembled the rear wheel.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
The rear rim has a asymmetric spoke hole pattern due to the offset — the angle at which the spokes enter the carbon hood differs, so the height of the holes in the hood is different.
When assembled in reverse, the spokes were apparently digging into the hood,
but one shop insisted that this rim has no left/right distinction
and that there's no mention of it in the manual either.
Of course there's a left/right distinction.
In Mavic's manual,
while it doesn't describe the rear rim holes in terms of "spoke incident angle" or whatever,
there are instructions to prevent mistakes.
The label near the valve hole in the image—
on the other side there's a barcode and serial number,
and the instruction reads:
"First, thread the spokes from the freewheel side"
"At this time, the barcode must not be visible."
Follow these instructions and you can't go wrong.
But if we could trust the work done by the second shop that reassembled the rim,
we wouldn't have it brought to us in the first place…
It's way off center.
And that's not all—while there's no obvious hop, there's definitely a radial wobble that you'd spot instantly on a truing stand,
and we had the customer confirm the condition before and after our work.
The lateral truing is also sloppy,
and the spoke tension is a bit loose (though still within acceptable range).
The customer sighed and said "They said they'd take responsibility and finish it perfectly!" but apparently that's how much responsibility they had.
Also, I think it's best not to use the word "perfect."
It's not possible.
Even right after I've built a wheel, there are surely radial and lateral runouts and center deviations that I can't detect,
so "perfect" is simply not achievable.
When a customer calls my work "perfect," I always say "That's not true" and deny it, but this isn't modesty—
it's something people often say, but I genuinely don't believe it,
so I always push back on that word.
While I'm at it, let me address "last-resort temple" (駆け込み寺).
I've never called ourselves that, but it's a phrase people use frequently.
Our shop doesn't meet the requirements of a temple,
but we do have a motto: "If a front wheel brings salvation, how much more a rear wheel."
Also, during work, people often say "A normal bike shop wouldn't fix something like this,"
and the moment I hear that,
I snap back with "Hey, are you saying we're not a normal bike shop?"
(I'm not actually snapping, just so we're clear)—it's become a standard routine.
Please stop doing that.
Fixed it.
No photos, but I inspected the front wheel too.
The front wheel is stock Mavic,
with slight center deviation (better than the rear),
no radial wobble worth correcting, and almost no lateral runout.
The second shop falls below Mavic's standards,
the first is even worse and beyond the pale,
but if we can't build this wheel to Mavic's standards or better,
I wonder what else there is to do.
I heard quite a story about the hardships it's been through at two different shops (I didn't ask which ones).
The customer said it's okay to write about it since the people involved would recognize themselves anyway.
At the first shop, right in front of the customer,
the carbon portion of the rim got cracked during service work
(I still don't understand how that even happens).
When they installed a spare rim as a replacement,
it was assembled left and right reversed,
but the junior staff member who did the work absolutely refused to acknowledge it,
and management wouldn't listen either, so
a different shop stepped in saying "Leave it to us!" and reassembled the rear wheel.
↑Freewheel side
↑Non-freewheel side
The rear rim has a asymmetric spoke hole pattern due to the offset — the angle at which the spokes enter the carbon hood differs, so the height of the holes in the hood is different.
When assembled in reverse, the spokes were apparently digging into the hood,
but one shop insisted that this rim has no left/right distinction
and that there's no mention of it in the manual either.
Of course there's a left/right distinction.
In Mavic's manual,
while it doesn't describe the rear rim holes in terms of "spoke incident angle" or whatever,
there are instructions to prevent mistakes.
The label near the valve hole in the image—
on the other side there's a barcode and serial number,
and the instruction reads:
"First, thread the spokes from the freewheel side"
"At this time, the barcode must not be visible."
Follow these instructions and you can't go wrong.
But if we could trust the work done by the second shop that reassembled the rim,
we wouldn't have it brought to us in the first place…
It's way off center.
And that's not all—while there's no obvious hop, there's definitely a radial wobble that you'd spot instantly on a truing stand,
and we had the customer confirm the condition before and after our work.
The lateral truing is also sloppy,
and the spoke tension is a bit loose (though still within acceptable range).
The customer sighed and said "They said they'd take responsibility and finish it perfectly!" but apparently that's how much responsibility they had.
Also, I think it's best not to use the word "perfect."
It's not possible.
Even right after I've built a wheel, there are surely radial and lateral runouts and center deviations that I can't detect,
so "perfect" is simply not achievable.
When a customer calls my work "perfect," I always say "That's not true" and deny it, but this isn't modesty—
it's something people often say, but I genuinely don't believe it,
so I always push back on that word.
While I'm at it, let me address "last-resort temple" (駆け込み寺).
I've never called ourselves that, but it's a phrase people use frequently.
Our shop doesn't meet the requirements of a temple,
but we do have a motto: "If a front wheel brings salvation, how much more a rear wheel."
Also, during work, people often say "A normal bike shop wouldn't fix something like this,"
and the moment I hear that,
I snap back with "Hey, are you saying we're not a normal bike shop?"
(I'm not actually snapping, just so we're clear)—it's become a standard routine.
Please stop doing that.
Fixed it.
No photos, but I inspected the front wheel too.
The front wheel is stock Mavic,
with slight center deviation (better than the rear),
no radial wobble worth correcting, and almost no lateral runout.
The second shop falls below Mavic's standards,
the first is even worse and beyond the pale,
but if we can't build this wheel to Mavic's standards or better,
I wonder what else there is to do.