I Replaced the Rear Rim on the First-Generation Racing 1

Another wheel day today (and so on).

A customer brought in the rear wheel of a first-generation Racing 1.
Since it's the first generation, it's the flagship model from the era of the three-model Racing 1, 3, and 5 lineup,
and while there was a tubular version, this one is WO (clincher) spec.

With WO rims, the brake zone gets worn away by the brake shoes,
and eventually can't resist the force of air pressure pushing the tire bead hook sideways—
something that doesn't happen with tubular rims...


The rim explodes.
BOOM!


The rim needs to be replaced, but this rim is actually obtainable.
Pretty cool.


The freebody is aluminum, Shimano 10-speed only.
The hub rotation feels rough, so I'll do an overhaul too.


On both sides, the bearing seals weren't snapped fully into the groove on the cone.
They wouldn't fall out naturally, so whoever worked on this hub before me messed up.



Pretty dirty stuff.


First I removed the freebody.
At that point the hub rotation got almost smooth,
so the damaged bearings are only on the freebody side.




After further inspection, only the outer bearing was damaged, so I removed it.

In cases like this, the part of the hub axle right under the bearing often gets corrosion staining or scratching,
but

this one came through fine.
By the way, this is an old-style shaft without butting,
so there are compatibility issues with the freebody (more on that later).


The cone and locknut on the hub show wear marks with clean striations,
with no pitting pattern.
The ball bearings aren't brand new shiny, but
I didn't feel they needed replacing, so I reused them.


The pawl-lifting spring on the freebody was bent.


Before

After
Right end nut.


I cleaned the spokes too, but

they didn't come out very clean.


These spokes come in only two types: front and rear,
and the rear ones are the same length on both sides.
The hub dimensions are adjusted to make that possible.

Shimano's first complete wheel, the WH-7700, was also designed
for left-right interchangeability,
but the WH-7701 switched to radial lacing on the drive side,
so the spoke lengths differ left to right.
Reducing the number of spare parts is a clever consideration,
but making a better wheel (as you'd think) is really what matters.

Until Racing Zero came out, this was
Fulcrum's only aluminum-spoked wheel,
and at the same time Campagnolo's Eurus was their flagship medium-height-rim model
with steel G3 spokes, so there's no spoke variety,
meaning no marking on the spoke head.
But the later models do get a "vertical line" stamp.


↑This is black-nipple aluminum spokes from the bagged era,
but

no marking here either.


Near the valve hole there's a small hole that seems necessary for manufacturing,
and it was aligned with a spoke hole, so

from inside it looks like this.


On the spare rim, the hole is a smaller diameter.
On 2WAY-FIT rims, this hole is carefully plugged.


Built it up.


Cleaned the hub too.
I'm not installing the freebody yet because
if the customer wants 11-speed conversion,
I don't want to waste the original 10-speed freebody
by installing its bearings and pawl spring.

This Racing 1 has an old-style shaft, but


the first-gen Racing Zero I worked on the other day for a different issue
had a new-style shaft, so I could fit the white aluminum freebody.

The 2005 Racing 1 has an old shaft,
the 2006 Racing 1 has a new shaft (everything else the same as 2005),
and Racing Zero debuted in 2007,
so unless it's been through some complicated history and modifications,
Racing Zero will always have a new shaft.


↑This is the 10-speed freebody from today.
It has a round hole that fits the old shaft.


In the case of Shimano 10-speed or 11-speed steel freebodies,
chronologically they came with new shafts,
but the hole is actually larger than on old-shaft freebodies,
so they fit old shafts too.


The Shimano 11-speed white aluminum freebody
or Campagnolo aluminum freebody
has the necessary cut-out only for new shafts, so they won't fit old shafts.

So the options I can offer the customer are:
・Keep the 10-speed freebody → replace the spring and bearings
・11-speed conversion without changing the shaft → swap to steel 11-speed freebody
・Want the white aluminum 11-speed freebody → need to replace the hub shaft


When I tighten the right end nut without the freebody,
the grooves end up more inboard than they should,



so I deliberately offset the centering.
Whether that lines up perfectly when the freebody goes on, I'm not sure,
but if it doesn't, it's just a minor adjustment.


Update:
I called the customer and settled on fixing up the 10-speed freebody, but


I got the offset direction wrong, so
the centering error got worse.
What a moron I am bbbggghhhh!!



Fixed it.


By the way, this post has more to it


Separately, a customer brought in another Racing 1 rear wheel.
Mounted on a roof rack with the wheel reversed (rear wheel facing forward)
in the opposite direction of the car's travel, they accidentally


hit it like this—CRUNCH!


Following the tire label position
makes it clear—yellow paint from the rim got transferred to the tire from rim strike, and

a bit further ahead

the rim is dented here.
It was a severe rim strike, but no pinch flat occurred.



Yep, rim replacement it is.


I noticed while disassembling that
Fulcrum's aluminum spokes don't have the final cross.
So the spoke pattern should look like this, but


somehow one spot was laced.
If this Racing 1 is a 2005 model and spare spokes with the later-style marking were used,
I could definitively say someone who serviced it made a mistake, but


it's a new-style shaft, so it's a 2006 or later model,
and all the spokes had markings.
It's unlikely the factory assembled it wrong though.


Built it up.


This is a steel freebody for 8-, 9-, or 10-speed, but


the customer modified it for 11-speed.


This is the original end nut groove position,
just slightly beyond the shaft face.



Of course this one is centered.


Before rebuild

After rebuild


Before rebuild

After rebuild

The silver one before rebuild weighs suspiciously light,
but that's almost unrelated to brake zone wear.
The tubular version of Mavic's Helium comes in only 26 holes up front,
which is unusual—otherwise it's the same as their Reflex... or not quite.
Only the earliest rims came in under 340g.
Later models are in the 390g range, becoming pretty much "red Reflex."
Similarly, Mavic's 2004 Ksyrium SL,
the first silver rim, had an official announcement that
the early batch rim cutting was overdone,
so the next shipment would have less cutting.
It's not always the case, but early-batch rims being unusually light is common.
Stan's ZTR Alpha 340 (→here) is like that too.
It started at 340g as the name suggested,
but because the rim holes kept cracking, it got heavier.
Though it still cracked anyway.

With our exploded silver rim today, the brake zone wearing off 50g
doesn't make sense. A few grams maybe, but not 50.
I think there's a connection between the explosion and being an early batch.
Of course, the customer who had the silver Racing 1
just bought what was normally available at the time; they didn't specially choose it.
But as for me, whenever I see a first-generation Racing 1,
I can't help sneakily checking whether it has the old shaft and unmarked spokes.