Wheels again today (and so on).
Writing this from home, heh heh, and wouldn't you know it, the whisky's gotten to me.
Milk whisky goes down smooth, but at 40% alcohol
this stuff hits different.
Fourth and fifth wheels from the Seven Samurai series.
38mm carbon tubular rims, 20H and 24H.
Front hub is that signature extra-wide flange, rear is a
Novatech equivalent to the Tni Evolution.
Built them up.
Fork geometry makes spoke clearance pretty tight, but
it's held up through training and racing without issues, so I'm going all-inpoke again this time.
The rim's even deeper than last time, so theoretically the spoke angle should be more obtuse,
which actually works in our favor for clearance.
So I went with inpoke throughout.
Novatech freebody compatible with Shimano 11-speed.
The red freebody is red for reasons unrelated to the 11-speed.
Comp on the freewheel side, CX-RAY Italian 4-6 pattern on the fixed side.
Most of you reading this blog probably already know whose wheels these are.
This person's blog gets more views than mine, after all.
And they've been going around saying my first and second wheels from the Seven Samurai series
"outperform the Colima wheels they originally owned," and so on—
but in my unbiased assessment, that's absolutely not the case.
The rear wheel is a PowerTap, and it's hardly a light unit to begin with.
What I try to do is this: if I were to place one of my wheels
among 99 other different wheels,
I'd try to objectively assess where it ranks among those 100
in terms of lightness, responsiveness, vertical stiffness, lateral stiffness, and so on.
I build wheels more than most people, sure, and I'm confident in that,
but I don't get arrogant about it—I aim to stay objective.
And when I do, my conclusion is that
"The Nomu Lab Wheel #1 in PowerTap spec does not outperform Colima,"
and I've told this person directly, many times over,
"There's no way that's true."
But when I look at their blog, there are glowing reviews of my wheels
written as if I'd asked them to do it.
Please, just stop.
When I handed over the wheels today, they kept squeezing the spokes and saying
"So stiff," "Amazing," over and over.
Even when I said, "If we rate the rear wheel of Nomu Lab #1's
fighting ability as 100 (Gundam Wing reference),
Colima's rear wheel scores 530,000 (Frieza's power level),"
they wouldn't have it.
This isn't false modesty—it's my honest, objective assessment (or so I believe):
I don't rate my own wheels that highly.
For vertical stiffness, WO Racing Zero or Lightweight can beat anything hand-built.
Even if I won by rim weight alone, that special-design stiffness
is something a hand-built wheel just can't achieve.
I've mentioned this repeatedly on this blog.
Some bike shop owners build hand-built wheels and become so fanatically devoted to their own gospel
that they lose perspective,
and I try not to fall into that trap myself.
In their case, the narrative becomes:
"Nomu Lab Wheel #1 has been confirmed to outperform Colima!"
But I'm telling you, that's not true.
For those of you reading both blogs,
I'd appreciate it if you took what they write about my wheels at about one-tenth face value.
It's funny—I'm saying "My wheels aren't that special"
while customers are saying "No, they're great," yet from the outside
it looks like the opposite. But I'm dead serious.
The wheels I'm handing over today might get written up glowingly too,
and I'm grateful and pleased about that,
but I'd suggest reading it at about one-tenth the stated value.
Writing this from home, heh heh, and wouldn't you know it, the whisky's gotten to me.
Milk whisky goes down smooth, but at 40% alcohol
this stuff hits different.
Fourth and fifth wheels from the Seven Samurai series.
38mm carbon tubular rims, 20H and 24H.
Front hub is that signature extra-wide flange, rear is a
Novatech equivalent to the Tni Evolution.
Built them up.
Fork geometry makes spoke clearance pretty tight, but
it's held up through training and racing without issues, so I'm going all-inpoke again this time.
The rim's even deeper than last time, so theoretically the spoke angle should be more obtuse,
which actually works in our favor for clearance.
So I went with inpoke throughout.
Novatech freebody compatible with Shimano 11-speed.
The red freebody is red for reasons unrelated to the 11-speed.
Comp on the freewheel side, CX-RAY Italian 4-6 pattern on the fixed side.
Most of you reading this blog probably already know whose wheels these are.
This person's blog gets more views than mine, after all.
And they've been going around saying my first and second wheels from the Seven Samurai series
"outperform the Colima wheels they originally owned," and so on—
but in my unbiased assessment, that's absolutely not the case.
The rear wheel is a PowerTap, and it's hardly a light unit to begin with.
What I try to do is this: if I were to place one of my wheels
among 99 other different wheels,
I'd try to objectively assess where it ranks among those 100
in terms of lightness, responsiveness, vertical stiffness, lateral stiffness, and so on.
I build wheels more than most people, sure, and I'm confident in that,
but I don't get arrogant about it—I aim to stay objective.
And when I do, my conclusion is that
"The Nomu Lab Wheel #1 in PowerTap spec does not outperform Colima,"
and I've told this person directly, many times over,
"There's no way that's true."
But when I look at their blog, there are glowing reviews of my wheels
written as if I'd asked them to do it.
Please, just stop.
When I handed over the wheels today, they kept squeezing the spokes and saying
"So stiff," "Amazing," over and over.
Even when I said, "If we rate the rear wheel of Nomu Lab #1's
fighting ability as 100 (Gundam Wing reference),
Colima's rear wheel scores 530,000 (Frieza's power level),"
they wouldn't have it.
This isn't false modesty—it's my honest, objective assessment (or so I believe):
I don't rate my own wheels that highly.
For vertical stiffness, WO Racing Zero or Lightweight can beat anything hand-built.
Even if I won by rim weight alone, that special-design stiffness
is something a hand-built wheel just can't achieve.
I've mentioned this repeatedly on this blog.
Some bike shop owners build hand-built wheels and become so fanatically devoted to their own gospel
that they lose perspective,
and I try not to fall into that trap myself.
In their case, the narrative becomes:
"Nomu Lab Wheel #1 has been confirmed to outperform Colima!"
But I'm telling you, that's not true.
For those of you reading both blogs,
I'd appreciate it if you took what they write about my wheels at about one-tenth face value.
It's funny—I'm saying "My wheels aren't that special"
while customers are saying "No, they're great," yet from the outside
it looks like the opposite. But I'm dead serious.
The wheels I'm handing over today might get written up glowingly too,
and I'm grateful and pleased about that,
but I'd suggest reading it at about one-tenth the stated value.