I received a Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST from a customer.
It's a 2019 model.
I didn't forget to shoot the front wheel—I just couldn't be bothered.
The rim is off-center toward the non-freewheel side—this is pretty typical for Mavic wheels,
but this one's offset is relatively minor. If all of them were like this,
you could argue they're aiming to center up under tire pressure, but
the variance is all over the place, and usually they're way more off than this. Plus,
the front wheel on this one was misaligned too, so it really just seems like
simple assembly tolerances are loose.
Got it centered.
It looks like the new rim and tire are matched here.
I'm convinced of this: road UST tubeless tires have undergone spec changes
way beyond what can be explained by individual unit variation.
The very early tires were so easy to install and remove by hand—or rather, too easy—
that I wondered if a sudden air loss from a puncture would cause the tire to come off mid-ride.
But recently, the ones I see require tire levers to remove and install,
and some customers can't remove them at all—so tight you wonder how they'd
deal with it if stranded. However, today's tire came off relatively easily with levers
and could be installed by hand (at least for me).
This isn't individual variation—it's a spec change. If it were individual variation, that would actually be worse.
Going back in the timeline, this is before the tire was installed.
The 2019 model has simpler rim cosmetics.
I suspect there's a guilty reason for this change too.
This is a 2018 model that I was asked to install a tire on separately.
When tire installation is tight, the tire lever doesn't catch the bead hook properly
and slides along scratching the rim sidewall.
The sticker on the rim sidewall gets peeled up this way.
I'm careful to avoid this, but if you don't know better, you'll likely do it.
The image above shows peeling from when the customer removed the tire,
but this is relatively mild. I've already seen 2 or 3 cases where
the sticker on one side of the rim was completely torn and peeled all the way around.
Update:
I had a chance to shoot some images.
The tire is IRC, so it's tight, and this happens.
↑Different angle from the previous image
It's a 2019 model.
I didn't forget to shoot the front wheel—I just couldn't be bothered.
The rim is off-center toward the non-freewheel side—this is pretty typical for Mavic wheels,
but this one's offset is relatively minor. If all of them were like this,
you could argue they're aiming to center up under tire pressure, but
the variance is all over the place, and usually they're way more off than this. Plus,
the front wheel on this one was misaligned too, so it really just seems like
simple assembly tolerances are loose.
Got it centered.
It looks like the new rim and tire are matched here.
I'm convinced of this: road UST tubeless tires have undergone spec changes
way beyond what can be explained by individual unit variation.
The very early tires were so easy to install and remove by hand—or rather, too easy—
that I wondered if a sudden air loss from a puncture would cause the tire to come off mid-ride.
But recently, the ones I see require tire levers to remove and install,
and some customers can't remove them at all—so tight you wonder how they'd
deal with it if stranded. However, today's tire came off relatively easily with levers
and could be installed by hand (at least for me).
This isn't individual variation—it's a spec change. If it were individual variation, that would actually be worse.
Going back in the timeline, this is before the tire was installed.
The 2019 model has simpler rim cosmetics.
I suspect there's a guilty reason for this change too.
This is a 2018 model that I was asked to install a tire on separately.
When tire installation is tight, the tire lever doesn't catch the bead hook properly
and slides along scratching the rim sidewall.
The sticker on the rim sidewall gets peeled up this way.
I'm careful to avoid this, but if you don't know better, you'll likely do it.
The image above shows peeling from when the customer removed the tire,
but this is relatively mild. I've already seen 2 or 3 cases where
the sticker on one side of the rim was completely torn and peeled all the way around.
Update:
I had a chance to shoot some images.
The tire is IRC, so it's tight, and this happens.
↑Different angle from the previous image