Another wheel day (and so on).
I built a front wheel using an ENVE "25" rim that a customer brought in for work.
Leaf hub 20H, black, CX-RAY spokes, radial spoking on the non-drive side.
Let me backtrack in time before I built the wheel,
The serial number is in the 1.3 million range with seven digits,
so it's from the final production period,
and the actual weight is like this.
Compared to early production rims, it's about 1.5 times heavier,
but there's a benefit: it doesn't vibrate at all when tensioned.
Not just carbon, but even aluminum rims—
lightweight low-profile rims can develop
"persistent lateral runout" when built to high tension,
caused by the rim holes being pulled alternately left and right,
but this rim showed none of that whatsoever.
Interestingly, even 25 rims from the 195g or 215g era
develop subtle waviness.
I've seen many rims over 300g that deform more from tension itself
than this rim does,
so it's something only the builder would notice rather than the rider,
but ENVE's rims are excellent in that regard.
The Zentis I worked on recently were also exceptional for tension resistance,
so building two of them in a row makes you almost forget
that this is actually impressive stuff.
I built a front wheel using an ENVE "25" rim that a customer brought in for work.
Leaf hub 20H, black, CX-RAY spokes, radial spoking on the non-drive side.
Let me backtrack in time before I built the wheel,
The serial number is in the 1.3 million range with seven digits,
so it's from the final production period,
and the actual weight is like this.
Compared to early production rims, it's about 1.5 times heavier,
but there's a benefit: it doesn't vibrate at all when tensioned.
Not just carbon, but even aluminum rims—
lightweight low-profile rims can develop
"persistent lateral runout" when built to high tension,
caused by the rim holes being pulled alternately left and right,
but this rim showed none of that whatsoever.
Interestingly, even 25 rims from the 195g or 215g era
develop subtle waviness.
I've seen many rims over 300g that deform more from tension itself
than this rim does,
so it's something only the builder would notice rather than the rider,
but ENVE's rims are excellent in that regard.
The Zentis I worked on recently were also exceptional for tension resistance,
so building two of them in a row makes you almost forget
that this is actually impressive stuff.