Another day with wheels (and so on).
I'm leading with a catchy title and an image that ignores the timeline,
but the measured 325g is light for an aluminum rim because
it's a small-wheeled rim.
The size is 20-inch WO, ETRTO 451mm.
This is a wheel that comes with a certain brand's small-wheel bike, and their sales options are:
• Frame set only
• Complete bike
and also
• Frame set + front and rear wheels
The customer chose the last option this time.
If you have components, handlebars, and saddle removed from a road bike, this set gives you the most flexibility.
I almost forgot to mention—the frame set plus wheels we sourced for this build ourselves.
When you try to hand-build an ETRTO 451mm wheel,
you almost never find these kinds of sleek (※)
low spoke-count rims.
The easily available option is probably the ALEXRIMS R390 rim in 32H.
※Apparently this is Kansai/Osaka dialect.
It's an expression meaning something like "refined" or "elegant."
The rim and hub share the same anodized color, giving nice design cohesion.
The front wheel is 16H radial laced
while the rear wheel is 2:1 laced, but it's 12:6H so it works out to 18H total.
An 18H rear wheel is extremely rare.
It only works because it's a small-wheel hub, but Campagnolo and Fulcrum G3 and 2:1 rear wheels are usually 21H (three spokes per set, seven pairs), whereas the Bora, Bullet, and Red Wind rims at 80mm or 105mm height have 18H rear wheels (three spokes per set, six pairs) (→here).
The spokes are Pillar butted round spokes, 14-gauge base.
I checked first because I thought they might be 15-gauge.
I rebuilt the front wheel, and while I was at it I swapped out those 14mm nipples for DT's 12mm black aluminum nipples.
The spoke length on the front wheel was somewhat short.
It reaches the spoke slot, so there's no problem.
This is a double-wall rim, but on a single-wall rim, since the nipple sits directly under the rim tape, you can't have the spoke end sticking out from the nipple even slightly, so you need to keep the length this short.
I figured that at the factory building this wheel, since they also build budget wheels, they probably use the spoke slot as the standard spoke-length cutoff.
The customer told me that if I find anything about the wheel that bothers me, I should feel free to tinker with it, so I decided to rebuild the front wheel.
Doesn't matter since I'm disassembling anyway, but there was a slight lateral runout.
The hollow bolt ends on the hub axle are loosened by inserting a 5mm allen key from both sides.
One side loosens first, then you insert an allen key into the 8mm or 10mm hex hole inside the hub axle and remove the other end. Usually, there should be one 8mm or 10mm hex hole on each end of the hub axle, but on this one there was only "one 8mm in the center."
It might be a rational design, but an 8mm allen key that reaches this deep—the non-ball-end kind—isn't a common tool.
As I mentioned, Pillar spokes.
After I'd released some spoke tension, I considered cutting them and disassembling, but once I loosened the nipples a bit, they came undone easily by hand since there was no thread-lock compound whatsoever. The effort to cut versus carefully disassemble was about the same, so I carefully took it apart.
These spokes might be usable for repairs on the rear left side.
The length of the 14-gauge section at the spoke head is quite short, so among spokes with the same butted diameter, the specific gravity is lower (lighter). But that doesn't make them lighter than CX-RAY.
For the rebuild I'll use CX-RAY straight spokes.
The threadless repair-use CX-RAY straight spokes I used the other day come in four lengths:
• 310 (down to 270) mm
• 270 (down to 240) mm
• 240 (down to 210) mm
• 210 (down to 190) mm
The shortest 210mm version has a somewhat narrow cutting range—just 20mm—but it worked for this job.
The distributor sells them one at a time, but I'm buying 20 for a 16H wheel on purpose.
If I mess up cutting the threads during the job, and I only ordered exactly the right number, the wheel delivery gets delayed.
Even without that concern, having a few spares is reassuring for future spoke replacement inventory. But CX-RAY straight spokes almost never break. Usually replacement is needed because someone bent them from impact or a crash.
If you're paranoid about miscalculating spoke length, you should order 32, but I'm not that reckless.
There's another reason I buy in 20-unit increments. Whether I need 12 or 8 spokes, I'm probably still ordering 20.
The manufacturer's unit for butted-head CX-RAY is 20 per bag. Until recently, the distributor also sold in 20-unit increments, but now they kindly sell single units.
This means trashy shops can no longer charge customers for 20 spokes when only 12 are needed and pocket the other 8. I'll name the shop now since it's defunct: Gasoline Array would charge for 20 spokes on a 12-spoke wheel and not give the customer the remaining 8—basically doing something shady. Unbelievable.
Lately it seems more shops order in 10-unit increments, so distributors sometimes bundle them that way—sometimes in bags like the image above, sometimes just banded together with paper wrapping. When it's a distributor's 10-pack rather than the manufacturer's original packaging, nipples are already attached to the spokes, which is a pain to remove. If you order 200 spokes and receive 20 bundles of 10, you're removing nipples from 200 spokes—a real hassle.
The butted-head CX-RAY comes in 20-piece bags, but straight spokes should come in 100-piece bags, so even a 20-spoke order doesn't arrive in the original manufacturer packaging.
Also, when there are fewer than 20 bundled together, the bag top gets cut, so
only the pristine CX-RAY bag
If I'm collecting them like this, the number of bags doesn't match my purchase records.
Lately, even ordering in 20-unit increments, there's a lower chance of getting bags straight from the manufacturer in their original state.
Today's example: 80 black CX-RAY 300mm arrived as two 10-piece cut bags plus six 10-piece bundles. Originally it should be four pristine 20-piece bags, but I got zero pristine bags from those 80 (though other lengths did arrive nicely packaged).
To my fellow shop owners, this is a totally selfish plea:
Please order CX-RAY in 20-unit increments. It's messing me up.
Oh, but, don't make your customers buy extra spokes either! Just don't!
Built.
The rear wheel—12 spokes on the freewheel side and 6 on the non-freewheel side—had nipple ends that were flush with the rim tape length.
My earlier theory about single-wall rim standard spoke length might have been reading too much into it.
I was bothered by how easily the nipples loosened when I disassembled the front wheel, so I applied DT's strong thread-lock compound, Spoke Freeze, from the outside.
There was only the slightest lateral runout—about half what the front wheel had initially—barely detectable even with a centering gauge, and spoke tension was already plenty, so I approached the centering work as "keep finding and chasing lateral runout in the direction that makes center come out," and it centered right up.
I'm leading with a catchy title and an image that ignores the timeline,
but the measured 325g is light for an aluminum rim because
it's a small-wheeled rim.
The size is 20-inch WO, ETRTO 451mm.
This is a wheel that comes with a certain brand's small-wheel bike, and their sales options are:
• Frame set only
• Complete bike
and also
• Frame set + front and rear wheels
The customer chose the last option this time.
If you have components, handlebars, and saddle removed from a road bike, this set gives you the most flexibility.
I almost forgot to mention—the frame set plus wheels we sourced for this build ourselves.
When you try to hand-build an ETRTO 451mm wheel,
you almost never find these kinds of sleek (※)
low spoke-count rims.
The easily available option is probably the ALEXRIMS R390 rim in 32H.
※Apparently this is Kansai/Osaka dialect.
It's an expression meaning something like "refined" or "elegant."
The rim and hub share the same anodized color, giving nice design cohesion.
The front wheel is 16H radial laced
while the rear wheel is 2:1 laced, but it's 12:6H so it works out to 18H total.
An 18H rear wheel is extremely rare.
It only works because it's a small-wheel hub, but Campagnolo and Fulcrum G3 and 2:1 rear wheels are usually 21H (three spokes per set, seven pairs), whereas the Bora, Bullet, and Red Wind rims at 80mm or 105mm height have 18H rear wheels (three spokes per set, six pairs) (→here).
The spokes are Pillar butted round spokes, 14-gauge base.
I checked first because I thought they might be 15-gauge.
I rebuilt the front wheel, and while I was at it I swapped out those 14mm nipples for DT's 12mm black aluminum nipples.
The spoke length on the front wheel was somewhat short.
It reaches the spoke slot, so there's no problem.
This is a double-wall rim, but on a single-wall rim, since the nipple sits directly under the rim tape, you can't have the spoke end sticking out from the nipple even slightly, so you need to keep the length this short.
I figured that at the factory building this wheel, since they also build budget wheels, they probably use the spoke slot as the standard spoke-length cutoff.
The customer told me that if I find anything about the wheel that bothers me, I should feel free to tinker with it, so I decided to rebuild the front wheel.
Doesn't matter since I'm disassembling anyway, but there was a slight lateral runout.
The hollow bolt ends on the hub axle are loosened by inserting a 5mm allen key from both sides.
One side loosens first, then you insert an allen key into the 8mm or 10mm hex hole inside the hub axle and remove the other end. Usually, there should be one 8mm or 10mm hex hole on each end of the hub axle, but on this one there was only "one 8mm in the center."
It might be a rational design, but an 8mm allen key that reaches this deep—the non-ball-end kind—isn't a common tool.
As I mentioned, Pillar spokes.
After I'd released some spoke tension, I considered cutting them and disassembling, but once I loosened the nipples a bit, they came undone easily by hand since there was no thread-lock compound whatsoever. The effort to cut versus carefully disassemble was about the same, so I carefully took it apart.
These spokes might be usable for repairs on the rear left side.
The length of the 14-gauge section at the spoke head is quite short, so among spokes with the same butted diameter, the specific gravity is lower (lighter). But that doesn't make them lighter than CX-RAY.
For the rebuild I'll use CX-RAY straight spokes.
The threadless repair-use CX-RAY straight spokes I used the other day come in four lengths:
• 310 (down to 270) mm
• 270 (down to 240) mm
• 240 (down to 210) mm
• 210 (down to 190) mm
The shortest 210mm version has a somewhat narrow cutting range—just 20mm—but it worked for this job.
The distributor sells them one at a time, but I'm buying 20 for a 16H wheel on purpose.
If I mess up cutting the threads during the job, and I only ordered exactly the right number, the wheel delivery gets delayed.
Even without that concern, having a few spares is reassuring for future spoke replacement inventory. But CX-RAY straight spokes almost never break. Usually replacement is needed because someone bent them from impact or a crash.
If you're paranoid about miscalculating spoke length, you should order 32, but I'm not that reckless.
There's another reason I buy in 20-unit increments. Whether I need 12 or 8 spokes, I'm probably still ordering 20.
The manufacturer's unit for butted-head CX-RAY is 20 per bag. Until recently, the distributor also sold in 20-unit increments, but now they kindly sell single units.
This means trashy shops can no longer charge customers for 20 spokes when only 12 are needed and pocket the other 8. I'll name the shop now since it's defunct: Gasoline Array would charge for 20 spokes on a 12-spoke wheel and not give the customer the remaining 8—basically doing something shady. Unbelievable.
Lately it seems more shops order in 10-unit increments, so distributors sometimes bundle them that way—sometimes in bags like the image above, sometimes just banded together with paper wrapping. When it's a distributor's 10-pack rather than the manufacturer's original packaging, nipples are already attached to the spokes, which is a pain to remove. If you order 200 spokes and receive 20 bundles of 10, you're removing nipples from 200 spokes—a real hassle.
The butted-head CX-RAY comes in 20-piece bags, but straight spokes should come in 100-piece bags, so even a 20-spoke order doesn't arrive in the original manufacturer packaging.
Also, when there are fewer than 20 bundled together, the bag top gets cut, so
only the pristine CX-RAY bag
If I'm collecting them like this, the number of bags doesn't match my purchase records.
Lately, even ordering in 20-unit increments, there's a lower chance of getting bags straight from the manufacturer in their original state.
Today's example: 80 black CX-RAY 300mm arrived as two 10-piece cut bags plus six 10-piece bundles. Originally it should be four pristine 20-piece bags, but I got zero pristine bags from those 80 (though other lengths did arrive nicely packaged).
To my fellow shop owners, this is a totally selfish plea:
Please order CX-RAY in 20-unit increments. It's messing me up.
Oh, but, don't make your customers buy extra spokes either! Just don't!
Built.
The rear wheel—12 spokes on the freewheel side and 6 on the non-freewheel side—had nipple ends that were flush with the rim tape length.
My earlier theory about single-wall rim standard spoke length might have been reading too much into it.
I was bothered by how easily the nipples loosened when I disassembled the front wheel, so I applied DT's strong thread-lock compound, Spoke Freeze, from the outside.
There was only the slightest lateral runout—about half what the front wheel had initially—barely detectable even with a centering gauge, and spoke tension was already plenty, so I approached the centering work as "keep finding and chasing lateral runout in the direction that makes center come out," and it centered right up.