It's been a while since I've had such a challenging job.
The same customer requested a rebuild of three carbon rear wheels all at once,
and I really struggled with various issues.
Starting with the 20mm.
I'm lacing the Black CX-RAY with a 40-spoke pattern.
The drive side is reverse Italian laced, and the non-drive side radial lacing is non-through-spoke.
This is a low-profile rim—quite light—but rather than
simply chasing "light in hand," the focus is on stiffness for spinning that light outer section,
so the customer specifically wanted a rebuild with DT Competition spokes.
Such a bold contrarian choice.
I think the wheel feels sluggish because of the non-drive side radial lacing,
and along with correcting that, deliberately choosing thicker spokes
—it's got that pro touch to it.
Rebuilt.
DT Competition in a 46-spoke pattern.
Next, the 38mm.
28 holes—a bit more spokes than usual.
Black CX-RAY in a 40-spoke pattern with non-drive side radial non-through-spoke lacing,
but for some reason on this one the drive side is Italian laced.
Rebuilt.
Silver CX-RAY in a 46-spoke pattern.
Of the three wheels, this one came out exceptionally well
in terms of correcting left-right spoke tension imbalance.
I plan to tie all spokes, but for this one it might not even be necessary.
The stiffness was already good, but it's improved even further.
Finally, the 50mm.
Still a 40-spoke pattern, but this time the drive side is reverse Italian laced again.
And only this one has non-drive side radial through-spoke lacing.
The lack of consistency makes me sense some kind of experiment.
"Spoke tension is loose," the customer noted, but
forgive me, I'll speak frankly:
I thought it was a partially built wheel.
It was that loose.
For this one, they wanted to reuse the drive-side spokes if possible,
and they were okay with having different spoke colors left and right if that happened.
Reusing seems doable, so I'll do that, but
I need to completely unlace it to fix the reverse Italian lacing.
Beyond that, since the hub is being replaced anyway, I'm rebuilding from scratch regardless.
The 20mm and 38mm use the same hub, but
the 50mm hub was quite narrow-flanged,
so I swapped it for a Tni Evolution Hub (Japanese hub brand).
It's a shame—the original hub had such nice high-low flange proportions.
Got it built.
46-spoke Italian laced pattern.
That's the case for all three this time.
The same customer requested a rebuild of three carbon rear wheels all at once,
and I really struggled with various issues.
Starting with the 20mm.
I'm lacing the Black CX-RAY with a 40-spoke pattern.
The drive side is reverse Italian laced, and the non-drive side radial lacing is non-through-spoke.
This is a low-profile rim—quite light—but rather than
simply chasing "light in hand," the focus is on stiffness for spinning that light outer section,
so the customer specifically wanted a rebuild with DT Competition spokes.
Such a bold contrarian choice.
I think the wheel feels sluggish because of the non-drive side radial lacing,
and along with correcting that, deliberately choosing thicker spokes
—it's got that pro touch to it.
Rebuilt.
DT Competition in a 46-spoke pattern.
Next, the 38mm.
28 holes—a bit more spokes than usual.
Black CX-RAY in a 40-spoke pattern with non-drive side radial non-through-spoke lacing,
but for some reason on this one the drive side is Italian laced.
Rebuilt.
Silver CX-RAY in a 46-spoke pattern.
Of the three wheels, this one came out exceptionally well
in terms of correcting left-right spoke tension imbalance.
I plan to tie all spokes, but for this one it might not even be necessary.
The stiffness was already good, but it's improved even further.
Finally, the 50mm.
Still a 40-spoke pattern, but this time the drive side is reverse Italian laced again.
And only this one has non-drive side radial through-spoke lacing.
The lack of consistency makes me sense some kind of experiment.
"Spoke tension is loose," the customer noted, but
forgive me, I'll speak frankly:
I thought it was a partially built wheel.
It was that loose.
For this one, they wanted to reuse the drive-side spokes if possible,
and they were okay with having different spoke colors left and right if that happened.
Reusing seems doable, so I'll do that, but
I need to completely unlace it to fix the reverse Italian lacing.
Beyond that, since the hub is being replaced anyway, I'm rebuilding from scratch regardless.
The 20mm and 38mm use the same hub, but
the 50mm hub was quite narrow-flanged,
so I swapped it for a Tni Evolution Hub (Japanese hub brand).
It's a shame—the original hub had such nice high-low flange proportions.
Got it built.
46-spoke Italian laced pattern.
That's the case for all three this time.