A customer brought in a Racing Zero Carbon (high-end racing wheel) for me to work on.
Starting with the rear wheel. The image is after work.
Apparently, the customer felt the wheel felt a bit slack for a Racing Zero, but
since they've owned multiple Racing Zero models in the past,
I can't dismiss their observation as unfounded.
About all I can do is adjust spoke tension,
so I decided to tension both wheels, leaving just a tiny bit of room for future truing.
The rear wheel is perfectly centered and has good spoke tension overall.
If there were 100 identical wheels, this one would rank in the top 10.
I tightened only the freewheel side.
So the rim is now pulled toward the freewheel side.
From here, I can still tension the non-freewheel side until center is achieved,
meaning all nipples will eventually have tension.
The center is...
...not there yet. It's less than a sheet of paper off, but there's still a gap.
There's a small gap at the bottom right, but I couldn't capture it well in the photo.
Center is achieved.
I could tighten it a bit more if I used up all the adjustment room,
but the tradeoff of losing the ability to true the wheel later
isn't worth it, since you won't notice that much improvement by feel. So I'll stop here.
Next, the front wheel. This is also the image after work.
The customer mentioned there was debris inside the rim,
and sure enough, there was quite a large object stuck in there.
The front wheel had a slight center offset and some runout,
and the spoke tension was quite low overall.
I didn't photograph it before work,
but the image above shows how much offset I created by tightening one side.
I was able to shift it more than the rear wheel.
I've done the truing and centering.
I'd wager there's no Racing Zero Carbon
within several hundred kilometers of the customer
that's more tightly tensioned than this one.
Give it a try now.
Starting with the rear wheel. The image is after work.
Apparently, the customer felt the wheel felt a bit slack for a Racing Zero, but
since they've owned multiple Racing Zero models in the past,
I can't dismiss their observation as unfounded.
About all I can do is adjust spoke tension,
so I decided to tension both wheels, leaving just a tiny bit of room for future truing.
The rear wheel is perfectly centered and has good spoke tension overall.
If there were 100 identical wheels, this one would rank in the top 10.
I tightened only the freewheel side.
So the rim is now pulled toward the freewheel side.
From here, I can still tension the non-freewheel side until center is achieved,
meaning all nipples will eventually have tension.
The center is...
...not there yet. It's less than a sheet of paper off, but there's still a gap.
There's a small gap at the bottom right, but I couldn't capture it well in the photo.
Center is achieved.
I could tighten it a bit more if I used up all the adjustment room,
but the tradeoff of losing the ability to true the wheel later
isn't worth it, since you won't notice that much improvement by feel. So I'll stop here.
Next, the front wheel. This is also the image after work.
The customer mentioned there was debris inside the rim,
and sure enough, there was quite a large object stuck in there.
The front wheel had a slight center offset and some runout,
and the spoke tension was quite low overall.
I didn't photograph it before work,
but the image above shows how much offset I created by tightening one side.
I was able to shift it more than the rear wheel.
I've done the truing and centering.
I'd wager there's no Racing Zero Carbon
within several hundred kilometers of the customer
that's more tightly tensioned than this one.
Give it a try now.