About the Stampings on Campagnolo and Fulcrum Aluminum Spokes

Campagnolo and Fulcrum aluminum spokes have

line stamps on the edge of the spoke head.
Treating the spoke's long axis as horizontal, we count the number of lines running vertically or horizontally and call them things like "vertical 3" for example.
The image above is an actual example of vertical 3.
There's a rule with these stamps: whether Campagnolo or Fulcrum,
the same stamp means the same length,
and I've never seen an exception to this so far.

Also, front spokes sometimes share the same length as rear left spokes depending on the era or model.


↑This is vertical 3, a rear left spoke.
Red is Racing Zero red, silver is Racing 1 silver,
but I can't tell if black is Racing Zero black or Shamal Ultra black.
If it's vertical 3, the length is the same.

So if Shamal Ultra's rear left black spoke happened to be vertical 3,
you could do a spoke swap with vertical 3 red or silver spokes for a stylish makeover.


↑This is vertical 4.
In the image the vertical line length on the silver spoke looks different, but it's exactly the same length as the other colors.


↑These are Shamal Ultra spokes from before the rear hub became Mega G3,
the original gold and the next gray version.
At our shop we sort these by color rather than length,
so vertical 3, 4, and 5 are mixed together.
Having three types means front and rear left aren't the same length.

The gray has dots on vertical 4, but at least there's no difference in length.
There are also cases where spokes have the same length but different thread start positions, which I'll describe later,
but those were completely identical as well.


I keep them in cases like this,

with front spoke length being

less than rear right yet

at least rear left, so I can identify them by holding them against
a reference paper on the case lid showing the front spoke length—
same length means front, longer spoke means rear right, shorter spoke means rear left.
By the way, vertical 5 is the freewheel side of the old G3 before Mega G3, so
there's no matching length on the current Mega G3 or 2:1.
When I do a spoke swap using front and rear left, it's partly because
I want to increase the chances of matching the stamp.


The other day I did a spoke swap on Racing Zero Carbon,
and since Racing Zero Carbon's front and rear left spokes
are the same length (vertical 4 with identical stamps),
I was able to use the traditional Racing Zero red spokes.

Now about Racing Zero Night from the previous post,

it's horizontal 2.


This is the same length as Shamal Mille's front (the image above).
It gets complicated, but I'll call this "horizontal-aligned horizontal 2".
Due to downsizing the front bearing, the hub flange also got smaller,
so spokes became slightly longer than before.

Here you might wonder: Racing Zero Carbon also has a small front bearing,
so why are its spokes vertical 4 instead of horizontal-aligned horizontal 2?
Let me explain this.
Fulcrum's aluminum spoke and nipple supply comes in four forms:
"front spokes only, complete set of 16"
"rear spokes only, complete set of 21"
"1 spoke and 1 nipple"
"nipples only, 10 pieces"

Among these, the part number for "front spokes only" is
the same between Racing Zero (aluminum rim) and Racing Zero Carbon,
but it becomes a different part number when you order
"1 spoke and 1 nipple".
The reason is



the nipples are different.
The spokes are the same vertical 4, so the spoke-only part number is the same,
but when paired with nipples, the part number changes.
In the image above, the one rounded like a pan-head screw
is the Racing Zero Carbon nipple.
Because of this difference and the rim inner diameter being different from the aluminum rim,
Racing Zero Carbon's front spokes are vertical 4
rather than horizontal-aligned horizontal 2, even with a small hub.

Getting back to the point: to do a spoke swap on Racing Zero Night,
you'd need to provide horizontal-aligned horizontal 2 red spokes for the front,
but no such thing exists.
Of course, there's no traditional Racing Zero red spoke that matches the length either.
This is a problem.

So I did some digging, and I noticed that
Racing Zero Competizione's spoke part numbers had been completely renewed.
Even though the hub and rim dimensions are the same, spoke lengths differ.
I wondered what was going on, so I ordered the actual parts.


Competizione's front spokes only, complete set of 16.
The stamp is diagonal 3. One is a red cosmetic spoke, but
naturally it's the same length as the other 15, so the rule holds: "same stamp means same length".


Competizione's rear spokes only, complete set of 21.
Diagonal 2 stamps on 7 spokes (left spokes, 1 is red),
and vertical-aligned horizontal 2 on 14 spokes (right spokes).


↑This one made it necessary to further distinguish the "horizontal 2" nomenclature.
This vertical-aligned horizontal 2 and Racing Zero Night's front horizontal-aligned horizontal 2
are completely different lengths.



Comparing old and new spokes on small-flange front hubs.
Both have horizontal-aligned horizontal 2 at top and diagonal 3 at bottom.


The overall spoke length is completely identical, but


the threaded portion length differs.


Actually, you can tell when ordering the new spokes as
"1 spoke and 1 nipple" or "nipples only",
the nipples have also been renewed with thread lengths to match.


The new nipple has nylon locking material embedded to prevent loosening.
In the article from two entries ago where I mentioned a foreign object coming from the rim,
that refers to bits of this breaking off.
This also changes the nipple's thread start depth, and


when you push the new spoke into the nipple thread until it bottoms out,

↑old nipple

↑new nipple
there's a difference in thread-pocket depth.
Based on these circumstances, I determined that combining the new diagonal 3 spokes
with old nipples should work,
so I used diagonal 3 red spokes on Racing Zero Night's front.


Similarly, I compared rear left spokes too.
In the image above, the red one is the new spoke.


In this case we have "different spoke lengths
but the same thread start position,"


I tried screwing the new spoke into the old nipple until fully threaded.
In practice, you can't actually tension a wheel this much.


When assembled, it would look about like this
(though even this seems quite tight).
Since the new nipple is longer overall than the old one,
the protruding part in the image should engage with the locking mechanism.

Campagnolo and Fulcrum aluminum spokes—I've never personally seen
a symptom where a single spoke gets gradually looser,
so the locking mechanism is frankly unnecessary.
It just makes seized nipples harder to turn, I'd say.

Regardless, in this case the effective spoke length is the same, so
while the front situation is different, I determined that combining
new spokes with old nipples should work, so I used Competizione's rear left spokes on Night.


↑Here's the rear left spoke I removed from Night compared to the new rear left red spoke.

You might worry whether it's really okay to pull out cosmetic spokes immediately
from a "front or rear spokes only" complete set,
but there's no problem. The actual merits of this article are quite questionable.



↑That's because I have separately stocked
"red spoke + 1 nipple" sets each for diagonal 3 (new front) and diagonal 2 (new rear left).
The distributor even saw right through me on this, saying,
"I'm sure you won't use these for anything decent."
Typical Campagnolo.


The original Racing Zero's tie spokes had
stamps that were neither quite vertical nor quite horizontal.
I'm calling them vertical 1 and vertical 2 for now.


Not tie spokes, but the freewheel side of the 2:1 before it became mega right-flange
is horizontal 1.
This spoke alone comes in a sales unit of "4 spokes and 4 nipples".
That's a leftover from when this model was the latest and had that sales unit structure.


I've researched which part numbers correspond to which stamps.
For example, vertical 4 means from the top of the image:
Racing Zero Front Spoke Black 01
Racing Zero Front Spoke Red 01
Racing 1 Front Spoke Silver 01
Wheel 105 Shamal Black
all vertical 4, so they're all the same length.
And as for black spokes,
you can't visually distinguish Racing Zero from Shamal Ultra.