Another wheel day (and so on).
A customer brought in a Reynolds 32 rear wheel for me to work on.
The rim is pretty much the same as our lab wheel #6.
It was built with a PowerTap GS hub converted to small flange and somewhat high-flange, using DT straight spoke 24H hubs (in the reverse order of what I just said, for the record), assembled as an all-black aero-lite 44-spoke build. However, the non-drive side is loose.
While the customer did point this out, it's also clear that the spoke tension imbalance left-right is greater than on the newer Reynolds hub (→here), which appears to have almost identical dimensions.
It might be related to the DT Ratchet Hub characteristic where the right end is longer (the ochacho is tight) for Shimano 11-speed freehub bodies.
I attempted to re-tension it, but with the rim centered and the drive-side tension already near its limit, there wasn't much I could do.
At that point, the customer made a proposal—if I were to rebuild this wheel with free rein on the specs, they reckoned I'd do exactly the same thing. This is either keen insight... or more likely, the customer has also been infected by our lab wheel philosophy, so we simply arrived at the same conclusion anyway.
The final crossing of the straight spokes—on both sides, they're not woven.
On the non-drive side, there were several spokes that had rotated in the flat direction.
Disassembled it.
Per the customer's request, I weighed the rim.
It's built.
I changed the drive-side spokes to black Leader 14 gauge plain with 100% spoke specific gravity.
I could have woven the final crossing if I wanted to, but I didn't.
The non-drive side reused the original spokes, but unlike before the rebuild, the final crossing is woven, and
The spoke connections are soldered.
In essence, I've built a pseudo lab wheel #6 while keeping the hub intact.
If the customer's evaluation comes back as "rides better than before the rebuild," that means the weighting of "relative importance of different elements" wasn't misjudged compared to Reynolds. Some complete wheel manufacturers might call this cheating since we're soldering spokes in the first place, but that would mean spoke soldering isn't just window dressing, wouldn't it?
As for Reynolds—their rims really are excellent.
"Just because you're the world's best cattle rancher doesn't mean you can grill a steak well. So if possible, I wish they'd just send over the rims."
There are several manufacturers I feel that way about.
Besides Reynolds, for example, company Z or so. ←Not really hidden at all
This time I've effectively built a pseudo lab wheel #6, but I should mention there's a scheme afoot to obtain a pseudo lab wheel #7 on the cheap.
Until just two days ago, Cycling Express had Reynolds' old Assault wheels listed at 79,999 yen for front and rear.
Even if you count just the front wheel and rear rim, that's an incredible bargain, and if we do a rebuild at our shop, you'd get a pseudo lab wheel #7 for around 100,000 yen total.
When I checked just now, they're sold out.
Or rather, the listing itself is gone from the site.
Tch, they might've sold it for exactly that purpose. What a pain.
A customer brought in a Reynolds 32 rear wheel for me to work on.
The rim is pretty much the same as our lab wheel #6.
It was built with a PowerTap GS hub converted to small flange and somewhat high-flange, using DT straight spoke 24H hubs (in the reverse order of what I just said, for the record), assembled as an all-black aero-lite 44-spoke build. However, the non-drive side is loose.
While the customer did point this out, it's also clear that the spoke tension imbalance left-right is greater than on the newer Reynolds hub (→here), which appears to have almost identical dimensions.
It might be related to the DT Ratchet Hub characteristic where the right end is longer (the ochacho is tight) for Shimano 11-speed freehub bodies.
I attempted to re-tension it, but with the rim centered and the drive-side tension already near its limit, there wasn't much I could do.
At that point, the customer made a proposal—if I were to rebuild this wheel with free rein on the specs, they reckoned I'd do exactly the same thing. This is either keen insight... or more likely, the customer has also been infected by our lab wheel philosophy, so we simply arrived at the same conclusion anyway.
The final crossing of the straight spokes—on both sides, they're not woven.
On the non-drive side, there were several spokes that had rotated in the flat direction.
Disassembled it.
Per the customer's request, I weighed the rim.
It's built.
I changed the drive-side spokes to black Leader 14 gauge plain with 100% spoke specific gravity.
I could have woven the final crossing if I wanted to, but I didn't.
The non-drive side reused the original spokes, but unlike before the rebuild, the final crossing is woven, and
The spoke connections are soldered.
In essence, I've built a pseudo lab wheel #6 while keeping the hub intact.
If the customer's evaluation comes back as "rides better than before the rebuild," that means the weighting of "relative importance of different elements" wasn't misjudged compared to Reynolds. Some complete wheel manufacturers might call this cheating since we're soldering spokes in the first place, but that would mean spoke soldering isn't just window dressing, wouldn't it?
As for Reynolds—their rims really are excellent.
"Just because you're the world's best cattle rancher doesn't mean you can grill a steak well. So if possible, I wish they'd just send over the rims."
There are several manufacturers I feel that way about.
Besides Reynolds, for example, company Z or so. ←Not really hidden at all
Until just two days ago, Cycling Express had Reynolds' old Assault wheels listed at 79,999 yen for front and rear.
Even if you count just the front wheel and rear rim, that's an incredible bargain, and if we do a rebuild at our shop, you'd get a pseudo lab wheel #7 for around 100,000 yen total.
When I checked just now, they're sold out.
Or rather, the listing itself is gone from the site.
Tch, they might've sold it for exactly that purpose. What a pain.