A customer brought in a Cosmic Carbon Ultimate for me to work on.
They want an inspection done.
The front wheel can't have truing or centering work done, though.
It's from the generation when they went to wider rims.
The hub flange has damage from impact,
and when you push on it, it deforms. Plus, when you touch it, splinters threaten to poke into your fingers, so
I soaked it with cyanoacrylate adhesive and sprayed hardener on it,
then sanded it smooth after it cured.
The hub rotation is grinding badly.
It doesn't look like it's been used much, so
there's only one possible cause.
It's probably ceramic bearings,
or if not that, then it's definitely been upgraded to non-contact bearings.
It was ceramic bearings.
Those "just stick ceramic balls into a steel ball race" ceramic bearings don't really have dramatically superior initial performance compared to steel ball bearings,
and more importantly, they don't maintain that initial performance for nearly as long.
Campagnolo's USB also switched from a black ball race to
a silver ball race,
and even though the manufacturer doesn't admit it, the two are
completely different in how resistant they are to pitting when ceramic balls are used.
They realized this after the fact and switched to a harder ball race.
So naturally, smooth steel ball bearings
perform better rotationally than
grinding ceramic bearings,
even though I had contact-seal bearings (the orange seal ones) in stock,
I deliberately went with non-contact steel ball bearings instead.
Given how little this bike has been used, the grinding was caused
by the ceramic ball bearings alone, not by water intrusion,
and also, the cone was overtightened,
so I judged that if handled properly, non-contact steel ball bearings should last a long time.
This is still before bearing replacement, but
on the Cosmic Carbon Ultimate, the left bearing
sits inboard by the thickness of the cone adjustment part.
They apparently wanted to make the right side wider rather than aligning left and right.
I can't do truing or centering, but regarding the centering offset,
I installed a tire too.
Vittoria's new Corsa, the Corsa Speed with Graphene 2.0.
Since the tire label is single-sided, I've oriented it on the right side.
Vittoria Corsa tubular tires have the label printed on the tread,
while WO tires have the label printed on the tire sidewall.
For tubular tires, to allow space for printing the label,
they deliberately create a "name field" by removing part of the tread.
The label couldn't print all the way to the edge of the name field,
but this area without tread is the "name field."
Now that they're labeling "Graphene 2.0,"
the label has gotten longer and no longer fits in the name field.
The name field ends around the "2" in "28 inches,"
and after that it's printed on the tread.
Even if the starting position hadn't been offset,
the label would be longer than the name field anyway, so it wouldn't fit.
Vittoria Corsa tires have
a "mount to compatible rim" marking that removes some tread, though not as much as the name field,
and this marking is reused between tubular and WO versions, so
that's why it's worded this way.
This MOUNT-whatever marking is always on the same side as the name field,
and on the opposite side is the "inflate to this pressure"
INFLATE-whatever marking,
also stamped into the tread.
Due to the tire manufacturing process, the name field, the MOUNT-whatever marking, and
the INFLATE-whatever marking are all made at the same time,
so on Corsa tubulars,
the name field and MOUNT-whatever are always on the same side,
and INFLATE-whatever is on the opposite side.
On Corsa WO tires,
there was a period when they shared tread patterns with tubulars,
and some had unused name fields (→here),
but current WO tires don't have name fields.
The tread pattern has no directional distinction,
and WO tires have dual labels, so
it might seem like they have no left-right orientation,
but even WO tires have the MOUNT-whatever and
INFLATE-whatever markings,
so when I install a Corsa WO tire,
I follow the rule that
"based on what I see on the tubular version, Vittoria's official position is
that MOUNT-whatever goes on the right side, so I follow that."
Next, the rear wheel.
This is how the freebody looks from use.
It was an FTS-L freebody.
If it had been an Instant Drive 360,
I would've written about its structural weaknesses,
but I'll save that for another time.
There was a subtle centering offset.
The non-freewheel side could be tensioned more.
I corrected the subtle runout and centered it.
As I've written before,
this rear wheel's truing capability using only the non-freewheel-side hub nipples
is a manufacturer convenience to eliminate fine centering offsets and improve product yield.
You'd think, "well why is it misaligned in the first place then?",
but massive centering offsets in shipped condition are kind of Mavic's trademark, so there's nothing to be done about it.
What about the front wheel's centering offset?
Some things in this world are better left unknown,
so I took photos but sealed them away myself.
Even if I were to tell anyone, it would only be to this wheel's owner,
and I have no intention of exposing it here or any reason to.
↑wow this guy's got bad vibes
Sorry for the wait!
（Illustration of a mechanical crab body exposing centering offsets and people cheering it on）
Please view these images!
↑Stop it!!
They want an inspection done.
The front wheel can't have truing or centering work done, though.
It's from the generation when they went to wider rims.
The hub flange has damage from impact,
and when you push on it, it deforms. Plus, when you touch it, splinters threaten to poke into your fingers, so
I soaked it with cyanoacrylate adhesive and sprayed hardener on it,
then sanded it smooth after it cured.
The hub rotation is grinding badly.
It doesn't look like it's been used much, so
there's only one possible cause.
It's probably ceramic bearings,
or if not that, then it's definitely been upgraded to non-contact bearings.
It was ceramic bearings.
Those "just stick ceramic balls into a steel ball race" ceramic bearings don't really have dramatically superior initial performance compared to steel ball bearings,
and more importantly, they don't maintain that initial performance for nearly as long.
Campagnolo's USB also switched from a black ball race to
a silver ball race,
and even though the manufacturer doesn't admit it, the two are
completely different in how resistant they are to pitting when ceramic balls are used.
They realized this after the fact and switched to a harder ball race.
So naturally, smooth steel ball bearings
perform better rotationally than
grinding ceramic bearings,
even though I had contact-seal bearings (the orange seal ones) in stock,
I deliberately went with non-contact steel ball bearings instead.
Given how little this bike has been used, the grinding was caused
by the ceramic ball bearings alone, not by water intrusion,
and also, the cone was overtightened,
so I judged that if handled properly, non-contact steel ball bearings should last a long time.
This is still before bearing replacement, but
on the Cosmic Carbon Ultimate, the left bearing
sits inboard by the thickness of the cone adjustment part.
They apparently wanted to make the right side wider rather than aligning left and right.
I can't do truing or centering, but regarding the centering offset,
I installed a tire too.
Vittoria's new Corsa, the Corsa Speed with Graphene 2.0.
Since the tire label is single-sided, I've oriented it on the right side.
Vittoria Corsa tubular tires have the label printed on the tread,
while WO tires have the label printed on the tire sidewall.
For tubular tires, to allow space for printing the label,
they deliberately create a "name field" by removing part of the tread.
The label couldn't print all the way to the edge of the name field,
but this area without tread is the "name field."
Now that they're labeling "Graphene 2.0,"
the label has gotten longer and no longer fits in the name field.
The name field ends around the "2" in "28 inches,"
and after that it's printed on the tread.
Even if the starting position hadn't been offset,
the label would be longer than the name field anyway, so it wouldn't fit.
Vittoria Corsa tires have
a "mount to compatible rim" marking that removes some tread, though not as much as the name field,
and this marking is reused between tubular and WO versions, so
that's why it's worded this way.
This MOUNT-whatever marking is always on the same side as the name field,
and on the opposite side is the "inflate to this pressure"
INFLATE-whatever marking,
also stamped into the tread.
Due to the tire manufacturing process, the name field, the MOUNT-whatever marking, and
the INFLATE-whatever marking are all made at the same time,
so on Corsa tubulars,
the name field and MOUNT-whatever are always on the same side,
and INFLATE-whatever is on the opposite side.
On Corsa WO tires,
there was a period when they shared tread patterns with tubulars,
and some had unused name fields (→here),
but current WO tires don't have name fields.
The tread pattern has no directional distinction,
and WO tires have dual labels, so
it might seem like they have no left-right orientation,
but even WO tires have the MOUNT-whatever and
INFLATE-whatever markings,
so when I install a Corsa WO tire,
I follow the rule that
"based on what I see on the tubular version, Vittoria's official position is
that MOUNT-whatever goes on the right side, so I follow that."
Next, the rear wheel.
This is how the freebody looks from use.
It was an FTS-L freebody.
If it had been an Instant Drive 360,
I would've written about its structural weaknesses,
but I'll save that for another time.
There was a subtle centering offset.
The non-freewheel side could be tensioned more.
I corrected the subtle runout and centered it.
As I've written before,
this rear wheel's truing capability using only the non-freewheel-side hub nipples
is a manufacturer convenience to eliminate fine centering offsets and improve product yield.
You'd think, "well why is it misaligned in the first place then?",
but massive centering offsets in shipped condition are kind of Mavic's trademark, so there's nothing to be done about it.
What about the front wheel's centering offset?
Some things in this world are better left unknown,
so I took photos but sealed them away myself.
Even if I were to tell anyone, it would only be to this wheel's owner,
and I have no intention of exposing it here or any reason to.
↑wow this guy's got bad vibes
Sorry for the wait!
（Illustration of a mechanical crab body exposing centering offsets and people cheering it on）
Please view these images!
↑Stop it!!