Another day with wheels (and so on).
A customer left me with a Roval CLX50 rear wheel.
Carbon tubeless rim.
I'll write this clearly even though some people won't agree with me:
Roval rear wheels are, to me, mediocre shit wheels.
Despite being a knockoff of Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing design,
the spoke gauge selection and angle design of the current models
aren't as smart as Fulcrum's, and that actually shows in real performance.
You almost never hear about Speed40 or Bora50 rear wheels rubbing on brake pads,
but with Roval you hear about it all the time.
(With the same shoe-rim spacing, same rider and frameset,
it's impossible for a Bora to rub while a Roval doesn't—the opposite is possible).
I've heard the defense that they have nice ride quality and suit Specialized's stiff frames just right,
more times than I care to remember.
I'm not particularly disputing those people's opinions,
but the fact is someone actually asked me to "do something about this,"
and here's the wheel in front of me.
Before rebuilding this one.
↑This is an image I shot for documentation—an older CLX model.
The final lacing crossing on the freewheel side is 8 places with 2:1 lacing, so it's 16:8H for 24H,
with internal nipples.
Roval wheels from this era have offset rim holes,
Rather than being offset on both sides,
the right side is at rim center, with only the left side offset to the left.
↑From the left side of the image: right-right-left
↑From the left side of the image: right-left-right
For a 24H rear wheel I'd want to use a generic hub
with equal 12H lacing on both sides, but with internal nipple specification,
generic nipples don't have the ball-joint-like articulation
that absorbs spoke angle, so running spokes from the left spoke hole
to the freewheel-side flange would be quite tight.
Plus, I didn't want to thread spokes in a right-left-right-left pattern
through the repeating right-right-left rim holes.
So I haven't taken on rebuilds like this before.
But the current Roval, assembled with generic nipples
(strictly speaking it's different, but I'll explain later),
has no hole offset in the rim.
So you'd think you could treat it as a normal rim, but...
The rim brake model rear wheel is 21H, so
I can't change the 2:1 lacing. That's a problem.
The customer gave me permission for irreversible modifications including relacing.
I used DT black Aerolite straight spokes on both sides, same diameter.
I heavily considered whether to use CX Sprint only on the non-freewheel side with asymmetric left-right plus reverse asymmetric diameter lacing and only relay the freewheel side,
or use CX Sprint on both the freewheel side too—I thought about it quite a bit.
Actually, I ran through the numbers on multiple other options too.
The rim was slightly offset toward the freewheel side.
I think it's from wear over time.
The rim had holes suitable for generic nipples,
and since the nipples could be turned from the outside and looked sturdy at the neck,
I reused them from the last build.
My earlier trial runs were done with brass nipples.
I also checked the companion front wheel,
and since there was no need to insist on turning from the outside
even if it meant peeling back the tubeless tape,
I adjusted by grabbing the 3.2mm hex on the inside.
Built.
I used black CX Sprint on the non-freewheel side and relayed the freewheel side.
I'm not sure this is the optimal solution,
but I'm confident it's far better than the original state.
If I'd aimed for this from the start
I wouldn't have needed to disassemble the freewheel side spokes,
but that's not how it worked out, so I did a complete teardown.
Which means there was a point where the rim existed as a bare rim,
and of course I weighed it then.
As absolute weight it's not particularly light,
but relative to rim depth, it's in a pretty light class—
excellent height-to-weight ratio.
There are lighter rims than this, sure,
but there aren't many rims with the same depth (and as a wide tubeless rim)
that are lighter than this.
After all this, let me say,
I have no intention of sharing the actual weight.
↑ wow this guy's got bad vibes
Thank you for your patience!
Please take a look at this image!
↑Stop that!
A customer left me with a Roval CLX50 rear wheel.
Carbon tubeless rim.
I'll write this clearly even though some people won't agree with me:
Roval rear wheels are, to me, mediocre shit wheels.
Despite being a knockoff of Fulcrum's 2:1 lacing design,
the spoke gauge selection and angle design of the current models
aren't as smart as Fulcrum's, and that actually shows in real performance.
You almost never hear about Speed40 or Bora50 rear wheels rubbing on brake pads,
but with Roval you hear about it all the time.
(With the same shoe-rim spacing, same rider and frameset,
it's impossible for a Bora to rub while a Roval doesn't—the opposite is possible).
I've heard the defense that they have nice ride quality and suit Specialized's stiff frames just right,
more times than I care to remember.
I'm not particularly disputing those people's opinions,
but the fact is someone actually asked me to "do something about this,"
and here's the wheel in front of me.
Before rebuilding this one.
↑This is an image I shot for documentation—an older CLX model.
The final lacing crossing on the freewheel side is 8 places with 2:1 lacing, so it's 16:8H for 24H,
with internal nipples.
Roval wheels from this era have offset rim holes,
Rather than being offset on both sides,
the right side is at rim center, with only the left side offset to the left.
↑From the left side of the image: right-right-left
↑From the left side of the image: right-left-right
For a 24H rear wheel I'd want to use a generic hub
with equal 12H lacing on both sides, but with internal nipple specification,
generic nipples don't have the ball-joint-like articulation
that absorbs spoke angle, so running spokes from the left spoke hole
to the freewheel-side flange would be quite tight.
Plus, I didn't want to thread spokes in a right-left-right-left pattern
through the repeating right-right-left rim holes.
So I haven't taken on rebuilds like this before.
But the current Roval, assembled with generic nipples
(strictly speaking it's different, but I'll explain later),
has no hole offset in the rim.
So you'd think you could treat it as a normal rim, but...
The rim brake model rear wheel is 21H, so
I can't change the 2:1 lacing. That's a problem.
The customer gave me permission for irreversible modifications including relacing.
I used DT black Aerolite straight spokes on both sides, same diameter.
I heavily considered whether to use CX Sprint only on the non-freewheel side with asymmetric left-right plus reverse asymmetric diameter lacing and only relay the freewheel side,
or use CX Sprint on both the freewheel side too—I thought about it quite a bit.
The rim was slightly offset toward the freewheel side.
I think it's from wear over time.
The rim had holes suitable for generic nipples,
and since the nipples could be turned from the outside and looked sturdy at the neck,
I reused them from the last build.
I also checked the companion front wheel,
and since there was no need to insist on turning from the outside
even if it meant peeling back the tubeless tape,
I adjusted by grabbing the 3.2mm hex on the inside.
Built.
I used black CX Sprint on the non-freewheel side and relayed the freewheel side.
I'm not sure this is the optimal solution,
but I'm confident it's far better than the original state.
If I'd aimed for this from the start
I wouldn't have needed to disassemble the freewheel side spokes,
but that's not how it worked out, so I did a complete teardown.
Which means there was a point where the rim existed as a bare rim,
and of course I weighed it then.
As absolute weight it's not particularly light,
but relative to rim depth, it's in a pretty light class—
excellent height-to-weight ratio.
There are lighter rims than this, sure,
but there aren't many rims with the same depth (and as a wide tubeless rim)
that are lighter than this.
After all this, let me say,
I have no intention of sharing the actual weight.
↑ wow this guy's got bad vibes
Thank you for your patience!
Please take a look at this image!
↑Stop that!